Formal models of social meaning and identity construction through language (SMIC)
How can we model how likely a speaker S is to choose a linguistic variant m given they want to construct a certain persona π ?
“...Madame la ministre...”
“...just drinkin’ a coke...”
PS (m|π)
SMIC is a project led by Heather Burnett at the Laboratoire de Linguistique Formelle.
The main objective of the SMIC project is to construct an empirically well-founded, mathematically explicit, and computationally implemented theory of social meaning and the role that socially meaningful linguistic expressions play in the construction of personal identities. The project uses multiple approaches to study this question: matched-guise experiments, corpus analyses, and sociolinguistic interviews form the empirical basis for the mathematical modelling.
For more information about the project, head to our About page.