When dialects collide: how socioeconomic mixing affects language use
Abstract The socioeconomic background of people and how they use standard forms of language are not independent, as demonstrated in various sociolinguistic studies. However, the extent to which these correlations may be influenced by the mixing of people from different socioeconomic classes remains...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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SpringerOpen
2025-07-01
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| Series: | EPJ Data Science |
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| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1140/epjds/s13688-025-00563-9 |
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| author | Thomas Louf José J. Ramasco David Sánchez Márton Karsai |
| author_facet | Thomas Louf José J. Ramasco David Sánchez Márton Karsai |
| author_sort | Thomas Louf |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Abstract The socioeconomic background of people and how they use standard forms of language are not independent, as demonstrated in various sociolinguistic studies. However, the extent to which these correlations may be influenced by the mixing of people from different socioeconomic classes remains relatively unexplored from a quantitative perspective. In this work we leverage geotagged tweets and transferable computational methods to map deviations from standard English across eight UK metropolitan areas. We combine these data with high-resolution income maps to assign a proxy socioeconomic indicator to home-located users. Strikingly, we find a consistent pattern suggesting that the more different socioeconomic classes mix, the less interdependent the frequency of their departures from standard grammar and their income become. Further, we propose an agent-based model of linguistic variety adoption that sheds light on the mechanisms that produce the observations seen in the data. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-83bd348bff4c4a828fd3903b6007f248 |
| institution | DOAJ |
| issn | 2193-1127 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-07-01 |
| publisher | SpringerOpen |
| record_format | Article |
| series | EPJ Data Science |
| spelling | doaj-art-83bd348bff4c4a828fd3903b6007f2482025-08-20T03:04:26ZengSpringerOpenEPJ Data Science2193-11272025-07-0114112110.1140/epjds/s13688-025-00563-9When dialects collide: how socioeconomic mixing affects language useThomas Louf0José J. Ramasco1David Sánchez2Márton Karsai3Institute for Cross-Disciplinary Physics and Complex Systems IFISC (UIB-CSIC)Institute for Cross-Disciplinary Physics and Complex Systems IFISC (UIB-CSIC)Institute for Cross-Disciplinary Physics and Complex Systems IFISC (UIB-CSIC)Department of Network and Data Science, Central European UniversityAbstract The socioeconomic background of people and how they use standard forms of language are not independent, as demonstrated in various sociolinguistic studies. However, the extent to which these correlations may be influenced by the mixing of people from different socioeconomic classes remains relatively unexplored from a quantitative perspective. In this work we leverage geotagged tweets and transferable computational methods to map deviations from standard English across eight UK metropolitan areas. We combine these data with high-resolution income maps to assign a proxy socioeconomic indicator to home-located users. Strikingly, we find a consistent pattern suggesting that the more different socioeconomic classes mix, the less interdependent the frequency of their departures from standard grammar and their income become. Further, we propose an agent-based model of linguistic variety adoption that sheds light on the mechanisms that produce the observations seen in the data.https://doi.org/10.1140/epjds/s13688-025-00563-9Computational sociolinguisticsDialectsSocioeconomic statusSocial media dataAgent-based modeling |
| spellingShingle | Thomas Louf José J. Ramasco David Sánchez Márton Karsai When dialects collide: how socioeconomic mixing affects language use EPJ Data Science Computational sociolinguistics Dialects Socioeconomic status Social media data Agent-based modeling |
| title | When dialects collide: how socioeconomic mixing affects language use |
| title_full | When dialects collide: how socioeconomic mixing affects language use |
| title_fullStr | When dialects collide: how socioeconomic mixing affects language use |
| title_full_unstemmed | When dialects collide: how socioeconomic mixing affects language use |
| title_short | When dialects collide: how socioeconomic mixing affects language use |
| title_sort | when dialects collide how socioeconomic mixing affects language use |
| topic | Computational sociolinguistics Dialects Socioeconomic status Social media data Agent-based modeling |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1140/epjds/s13688-025-00563-9 |
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