[NLP for Social Science #5]: Amir Goldberg - Incite at Columbia University

This free public lecture series explores how NLP is used to illuminate social processes and institutions.

#5: Locally Ensconced and Globally Integrated: How Positions in Network Structure Relate to a Language-Based Model of Group Identification

Shifting attachments to social groups are a constant in the modern era. What accounts for variation in the strength of group identification? Whereas prior work has emphasized group-level properties and individual differences, this article instead highlights the role of positions within network structure. We hypothesize that identification is positively related to occupying positions characterized by local clustering—having contacts who are mutually interconnected—and global reach—having contacts who inhabit a broad range of network communities. We use the tools of computational linguistics to develop a language-based measure of identification and find consistent support for the theory using pooled data of internal communications from three disparate organizations.

About this workshop

The goal of this new lecture series is to invite scholars whose research uses contemporary NLP methods to illuminate not only the internal structures and patterns of linguistic forms, but also the social processes and institutions in which they are embedded. The work of these speakers represents some of the most promising directions in applied NLP due to its technical rigor, research design, and theoretical depth.

Support for this series is generously provided by INCITE at Columbia and the Platial Analysis Lab at McGill. This workshop is jointly organized by Jack LaViolette (Columbia University, sociology) and Mikael Brunila (McGill University, geography).

You can find the complete schedule of dates and speakers on our website.