Co‐Occurrence, Extension, and Social Salience: The Emergence of Indexicality in an Artificial Language

Published on May 15, 2023

Imagine you’re in a secret code club where each member has their own unique way of speaking. Some might say the secret phrase with a British accent, while others might emphasize certain words to convey different meanings. In this study, scientists wanted to understand how these social cues develop in language. They created an artificial language and conducted experiments to see how speakers naturally associated specific linguistic patterns with different social or contextual features. The results showed that people quickly formed associations between certain linguistic variants and particular social groups, demonstrating first-order indexicality. Moreover, as the experiment progressed, higher-order indexicality emerged as individuals extended these associations to new speaker groups based on perceived practical importance. This study sheds light on the intricate nature of language variation and offers insights into how sociolinguistic cues evolve. To delve deeper into this fascinating research, check out the full article!

Abstract
We investigated the emergence of sociolinguistic indexicality using an artificial-language-learning paradigm. Sociolinguistic indexicality involves the association of linguistic variants with nonlinguistic social or contextual features. Any linguistic variant can acquire “constellations” of such indexical meanings, though they also exhibit an ordering, with first-order indices associated with particular speaker groups and higher-order indices targeting stereotypical attributes of those speakers. Much natural-language research has been conducted on this phenomenon, but little experimental work has focused on how indexicality emerges. Here, we present three miniature artificial-language experiments designed to break ground on this question. Results show ready formation of first-order indexicality based on co-occurrence alone, with higher-order indexicality emerging as a result of extension to new speaker groups, modulated by the perceived practical importance of the indexed social feature.

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