Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2011 May 12;6(5):e19009. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0019009.
Patterns of word use both reflect and influence a myriad of human activities and interactions. Like other entities that are reproduced and evolve, words rise or decline depending upon a complex interplay between their intrinsic properties and the environments in which they function. Using Internet discussion communities as model systems, we define the concept of a word niche as the relationship between the word and the characteristic features of the environments in which it is used. We develop a method to quantify two important aspects of the size of the word niche: the range of individuals using the word and the range of topics it is used to discuss. Controlling for word frequency, we show that these aspects of the word niche are strong determinants of changes in word frequency. Previous studies have already indicated that word frequency itself is a correlate of word success at historical time scales. Our analysis of changes in word frequencies over time reveals that the relative sizes of word niches are far more important than word frequencies in the dynamics of the entire vocabulary at shorter time scales, as the language adapts to new concepts and social groupings. We also distinguish endogenous versus exogenous factors as additional contributors to the fates of words, and demonstrate the force of this distinction in the rise of novel words. Our results indicate that short-term nonstationarity in word statistics is strongly driven by individual proclivities, including inclinations to provide novel information and to project a distinctive social identity.
词汇的使用模式既反映又影响着人类的各种活动和互动。像其他被复制和进化的实体一样，词汇的兴衰取决于其内在特性和功能环境之间的复杂相互作用。我们使用互联网讨论社区作为模型系统，将词汇生态位的概念定义为词汇与其使用环境的特征之间的关系。我们开发了一种方法来量化词汇生态位大小的两个重要方面：使用该词汇的个体的范围和它用于讨论的主题的范围。在控制词汇频率的情况下，我们表明，词汇生态位的这两个方面是词汇频率变化的重要决定因素。先前的研究已经表明，词汇频率本身是词汇在历史时间尺度上成功的一个相关因素。我们对词汇频率随时间变化的分析表明，在较短的时间尺度上，词汇生态位的相对大小比词汇频率在整个词汇的动态中更为重要，因为语言在适应新概念和新的社会群体时会发生变化。我们还将内源性和外源性因素区分开来，作为词汇命运的额外贡献因素，并在新词的兴起中证明了这种区别的力量。我们的研究结果表明，词汇统计数据的短期非平稳性主要是由个体倾向驱动的，包括提供新颖信息和投射独特社会身份的倾向。
