@inproceedings{ch-wang-jurgens-2021-using,
title = "Using Sociolinguistic Variables to Reveal Changing Attitudes Towards Sexuality and Gender",
author = "CH-Wang, Sky and
Jurgens, David",
editor = "Moens, Marie-Francine and
Huang, Xuanjing and
Specia, Lucia and
Yih, Scott Wen-tau",
booktitle = "Proceedings of the 2021 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing",
month = nov,
year = "2021",
address = "Online and Punta Cana, Dominican Republic",
publisher = "Association for Computational Linguistics",
url = "https://aclanthology.org/2021.emnlp-main.782",
doi = "10.18653/v1/2021.emnlp-main.782",
pages = "9918--9938",
abstract = "Individuals signal aspects of their identity and beliefs through linguistic choices. Studying these choices in aggregate allows us to examine large-scale attitude shifts within a population. Here, we develop computational methods to study word choice within a sociolinguistic lexical variable{---}alternate words used to express the same concept{---}in order to test for change in the United States towards sexuality and gender. We examine two variables: i) referents to significant others, such as the word {``}partner{''} and ii) referents to an indefinite person, both of which could optionally be marked with gender. The linguistic choices in each variable allow us to study increased rates of acceptances of gay marriage and gender equality, respectively. In longitudinal analyses across Twitter and Reddit over 87M messages, we demonstrate that attitudes are changing but that these changes are driven by specific demographics within the United States. Further, in a quasi-causal analysis, we show that passages of Marriage Equality Acts in different states are drivers of linguistic change.",
}
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<abstract>Individuals signal aspects of their identity and beliefs through linguistic choices. Studying these choices in aggregate allows us to examine large-scale attitude shifts within a population. Here, we develop computational methods to study word choice within a sociolinguistic lexical variable—alternate words used to express the same concept—in order to test for change in the United States towards sexuality and gender. We examine two variables: i) referents to significant others, such as the word “partner” and ii) referents to an indefinite person, both of which could optionally be marked with gender. The linguistic choices in each variable allow us to study increased rates of acceptances of gay marriage and gender equality, respectively. In longitudinal analyses across Twitter and Reddit over 87M messages, we demonstrate that attitudes are changing but that these changes are driven by specific demographics within the United States. Further, in a quasi-causal analysis, we show that passages of Marriage Equality Acts in different states are drivers of linguistic change.</abstract>
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%0 Conference Proceedings
%T Using Sociolinguistic Variables to Reveal Changing Attitudes Towards Sexuality and Gender
%A CH-Wang, Sky
%A Jurgens, David
%Y Moens, Marie-Francine
%Y Huang, Xuanjing
%Y Specia, Lucia
%Y Yih, Scott Wen-tau
%S Proceedings of the 2021 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing
%D 2021
%8 November
%I Association for Computational Linguistics
%C Online and Punta Cana, Dominican Republic
%F ch-wang-jurgens-2021-using
%X Individuals signal aspects of their identity and beliefs through linguistic choices. Studying these choices in aggregate allows us to examine large-scale attitude shifts within a population. Here, we develop computational methods to study word choice within a sociolinguistic lexical variable—alternate words used to express the same concept—in order to test for change in the United States towards sexuality and gender. We examine two variables: i) referents to significant others, such as the word “partner” and ii) referents to an indefinite person, both of which could optionally be marked with gender. The linguistic choices in each variable allow us to study increased rates of acceptances of gay marriage and gender equality, respectively. In longitudinal analyses across Twitter and Reddit over 87M messages, we demonstrate that attitudes are changing but that these changes are driven by specific demographics within the United States. Further, in a quasi-causal analysis, we show that passages of Marriage Equality Acts in different states are drivers of linguistic change.
%R 10.18653/v1/2021.emnlp-main.782
%U https://aclanthology.org/2021.emnlp-main.782
%U https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2021.emnlp-main.782
%P 9918-9938
Markdown (Informal)
[Using Sociolinguistic Variables to Reveal Changing Attitudes Towards Sexuality and Gender](https://aclanthology.org/2021.emnlp-main.782) (CH-Wang & Jurgens, EMNLP 2021)
ACL