Sociolinguistics is a field that explores the relationship between language and society by examining the impact that each has on the other. Linguists study the process of acquisition and processing of language in the brain as well as how society structures communication. One linguist, William Labov, examined certain factors in society that may influence language and how speakers enforce those factors (Bell, Sharma & Britain, 2016). Various characteristics such as class, gender, and ethnicity affect how individuals learn or speak a language. For example, native speakers have a way of articulating and learning words compared to local speakers who may pronounce words differently. Language is used for communication, and this affects how individuals view a given topic in the community. Therefore, language and society influence each other because social factors influence how an individual learns and processes language.
A Summary of the Investigation
The research “ How the Size of Our Social Network Influences Our Semantic Skills” seeks to investigate how the number of individuals that one surrounds themselves with influences their ability to learn and process language. The researcher acknowledges that one’s environment plays a significant role in their linguistic skills because those they interact with affect how they understand and process information. The purpose of the investigation was to determine if social network size affects one’s linguistic skills in their native language (Lev‐Ari, 2016). The research focused on a global understanding of the language that people use for evaluation of performance on various aspects. There were two studies for the investigation with the first one examining the natural global comprehension differences in social network size. The findings showed that more extensive social networks increase the ability of an individual to understand the strength of restaurant reviews.
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In the second study, the researcher changed social network size by randomly allocating participants to learn novel evaluative words as used by different speakers. The first two speakers consisted of a small network of two whereas the other one was a large one with eight speakers. The findings of the second study were similar to those of the first one as it showed that a larger social network improves linguistic abilities (Lev‐Ari, 2016). Individuals exposed to a more extensive social network have a higher chance of understanding the meaning of product reviews that comprised of novel words that the speakers used. Both studies show that the size of an individual’s network influences their success in understanding a given language (Lev‐Ari, 2016). Nonetheless, there is a need to further determine the impact of a person’s lifestyle and nature of social interactions on linguistic styles.
Subjects of the Study
The two studies consisted of participants recruited through M-Turk. The first study had forty-nine native English speakers with USA IP addresses whereas the second study constituted of seventy-six native speakers residing in the USA. The second group had Two-speaker and Eight-speaker conditions (small and large group). The second study, however, excluded one participant because they clicked the right-most answer in one second or less and eliminated another one because they aborted the experiment in the middle then restarted (Lev‐Ari, 2016). Still, the researcher randomly selected participants who had informed consent to be part of the study.
Methods Used in the Study
In the first study, the researchers provided participants with elicited restaurant reviews that they were to read and indicate the number of stars that the writer gave the restaurant. The purpose was to understand the extent of the comprehension of the review whose primary goal is to inform readers whether or not to go to the restaurants. The study assumed that the star ratings a participant gives the restaurant summarized a reviewer’s level of enthusiasm. Therefore, the method that the researcher employed involved providing the participants with an opportunity to evaluate the language that the reviewers had used in the restaurant reviews and allocate stars to the review.
In the second study, the researcher first trained participants using one hundred and sixty reviews with novel words. Some of the words used in the questionnaires were horrible , bad , ok , good , and great (Lev‐Ari, 2016). The Two Speakers condition involved randomly selecting two out of eight speakers for a total of forty reviews. In the Eight Speakers condition, however, the researcher randomly sampled reviews for the participants, ensuring each was exposed to all rating levels from each of the eight reviewers. The study involved exposing the participants to different sets of reviews and cartoon faces used for eight different reviewers. There was also the selection of twenty additional reviews for global comprehension.
In the training period, the researcher asked the participants to estimates the reviewers’ number of stars assigned to a chair and they would receive feedback immediately. In case the respondent provided a correct answer, a response alarm would turn green whereas an incorrect answer prompted color red. The subjects got a chance to answer the questions at their own pace as the system did not limit the time they took to provide answers. “Following the training stage, participants performed three tests: a lexical prediction task, a global comprehension task, and a word ordering task” (Lev‐Ari, 2016). During the global comprehension task, the participants did not receive feedback, and cartoons were not attached to the reviews (as these were new reviewers unfamiliar to participants; but the element of answering the questions at their pace remained the same as in the exposure step. Therefore, the study’s method of research, as in the first study, focused on global comprehension.
Results of the Study
The results of the first study showed that the more the number of individuals that the participants interacted with in a week, the more accurately they interpreted reviewers’ evaluation. Thus, the characteristics of a person’s social network can influence their linguistic skills. The outcome points out that a larger social network improves an individual’s chances of understanding evaluative descriptions (Lev‐Ari, 2016). The results of the second study were similar to the main findings of the first one, and this indicated how social network size influences linguistic skills. In this case, the findings of the study showed that the larger the number of individuals one is exposed to, the higher the chances of boosting their linguistic skills such as global comprehension.
Generally, the results of the study show that an individual’s social network size and heterogeneity of people in one’s environment influence their linguistic skills in that they affect their ability to understand language. Exposure to a larger number of people enables an individual to learn distribution in the community speech more reliably (Lev‐Ari, 2016). Furthermore, it allows one to learn how to use various terms and to understand that expression differs in various subgroups in the population; hence meanings of various terms vary in their contexts. Therefore, the results of the study point out that a larger social network improves the interpretation of the meaning of various languages.
Critique of the Study
The research “ How the Size of Our Social Network Influences Our Semantic Skills” thoroughly examines the topic. The author uses two studies to examine social influences on one’s linguistic skills, and the findings of one study reflect on those of the other one. Hence, the results of the research are convincing enough because research on different participants in different studies shows a similar outcome. Furthermore, the researchers were keen on the respondent’s speed of responding to the questions, and this is an indication that the study is reliable. The researcher had a more in-depth analysis of the element of study and remained objective to a greater extent in their investigation.
On the other hand, the study focused on only one element of the social factors that influences linguistic skills failing to account for the fact that other issues play a significant role in influencing one’s development of language. The researcher fails to take into consideration that some other factors such as the relationship between the participants and those that they come in contact with during their routine. Other aspects such as class, age, educational level, geographical background, and ethnicity also influence an individual’s linguistic skills. Therefore, one shortcoming of the investigation is that it does not take into account specific issues in one’s life that affect an individual’s linguistic skills.
Conclusion
In conclusion, social factors such as the size of an individual’s network influences language. The more the number of people an individual is exposed to, the higher their chances of learning a language. On the other hand, interacting with fewer people lowers their chances of improving their linguistic styles. Additionally, an individual’s comprehension of language reflects how they view various aspects. For instance, how the participants in the study “ How the Size of Our Social Network Influences Our Semantic Skills” analyzed reviews shows that language influences society. How they examined the reviews based on the people they interacted with reflects their understanding of a language.
References
Bell, A., Sharma, D., & Britain, D. (2016). Labov in sociolinguistics: An introduction. Journal of sociolinguistics , 20 (4), 399-408.
Lev‐Ari, S. (2016). How the size of our social network influences our semantic skills. Cognitive science , 40 (8), 2050-2064.
