Do birds of a feather flock together? Language and its effect on friendship ties

Abstract

Scholars have identified multiple antecedents of friendship ties like race, values, beliefs, and similarity of sex. In the present study, we have chosen a major but overlooked antecedent of friendship ties: language. As language has been found to be an important determinate of socio-cultural identity we argued that proximities in mother tongues would translate into proximities in friendship ties. We reason that while MBA classrooms are governed by transactional relationships, socio-cultural attributes would still dictate the formation of friendship ties. With unique measurement tools, we assessed the effect of linguistic proximity, language attitude, lingua franca, and language proficiency on friendship ties among 24272 unique dyadic pairs of MBA students inside a premier management institute in India. We found support for the argument that linguistic proximities translate into stronger friendship ties.