Language change and network games

Abstract

AbstractStudies of language change and variation in sociolinguistics investigate the correlations between social variables and phenomena like vernacular speech norms, code switching, and dialect continua. In multiple studies, researchers claim one variable as (a) particularly decisive and correlative for a number of phenomena and (b) almost universally applicable: the social network structure (Milroy, ). This article summarizes previous work incorporating network theory in questions of language change and discusses a practice noticeably absent from classical sociolinguistics: the simulation of language change. In simulation experiments, sociolinguistic theories of language change – especially those employing social network structure – can be tested in a virtual society free from the hindrance of data sparseness. In this context, the model of game theory can be utilized to construct individuals' interaction for more robust and feasible results.