LING20010 Chap.5 Social Networks and Communities of Practice
Social Networks and Communities of Practice
Class categories get results, but they do not show how speech norms are passed between people. This chapter turns to the personal network: who a speaker is actually tied to, how dense those ties are, and whether each tie carries one role or several.
Milroy's Belfast study showed that a Network Strength Scale explained differences between women of the same age and background, Rickford's Cane Walk study used networks to explain two speakers who broke their occupational pattern, and Lippi-Green found that integration into village networks went with conservative vowels. The weak-tie model then explains why loose networks spread innovations.
The chapter ends with communities of practice, defined by mutual engagement, a joint enterprise and a shared repertoire, and with the jocks, burnouts and nerd girls who became the field's classic examples.
The lecture's take-home point is methodological: investigating networks and communities of practice needs different data collection, such as observation and reciprocal naming, which can complement and explain the patterns found with broad categories like class.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Ego networks, density and multiplex ties
- 02
The Network Strength Scale
- 03
Cane Walk, Belfast and Grossdorf
- 04
The weak-tie model and brokers
- 05
Communities of practice
- 06
Jocks, burnouts and nerd girls
Worked example · free
Predict change from the shape of two networks
- 1Describe Network A as dense and multiplex: contacts are linked to each other and through several roles.
- 1Describe Network B as loose and uniplex: contacts are unlinked and each tie has one role.
- 1Dense multiplex networks enforce local norms and resist outside pressure.
- 1Conclude that the ego in Network B is more open to adopting an outside innovation.
Key terms
- Ego
- The ego is the person at the centre of a social network analysis.
- Network density
- Network density is the extent to which the members of a person's network are in touch with one another.
- Uniplex tie
- A uniplex tie links two people through a single role, such as workmates who meet nowhere else.
- Weak tie
- A weak tie is a link to an acquaintance rather than to close friends or kin.
- Broker
- A broker is a person whose membership in several groups lets them carry an innovation from one practice into another.
- Network Strength Scale
- The Network Strength Scale is Milroy's five-point measure of a speaker's integration into a local, place-based network.
Social Networks and Communities of Practice FAQ
How is a community of practice different from a social network?
A network describes ties between individuals. A community of practice is a group that comes together around a shared enterprise, with mutual engagement and a shared repertoire, so it adds what people do together to who they know.
Why do dense networks resist change?
Strong, multiplex, dense ties support members but also constrain their behaviour, acting as a norm-enforcement mechanism. Speakers embedded in such networks face local pressure to keep the vernacular, so outside innovations struggle to take hold.
How were network ties identified in the studies?
Researchers combined reciprocal naming, where people name the others they spend time with, with interviews and observation. Cheshire's Reading study used these methods to separate core members of a group from peripheral ones.
What is a multiplex tie?
A multiplex tie links two people through more than one relationship at once, for example a cousin who is also a workmate and a darts partner. Networks built from many multiplex ties exert strong pressure on members to keep local norms.
Assessment move
Draw two small network diagrams from memory, one dense and multiplex, one loose and uniplex, and label the ego, the tie types and the predicted effect on change. Then learn the five criteria of the Network Strength Scale well enough to score an invented speaker. For each study, from Cane Walk to Grossdorf, note the network measure and the linguistic result in one line.
Finish with communities of practice: practise testing a group against the three criteria, and be ready to explain why a demographic category such as an age group is not one. If your project studies a friendship group, this is the framework your methods section needs.
Working through Social Networks and Communities of Practice in LING20010? Sia is AskSia’s AI Arts and Humanities tutor — ask any LING20010 Social Networks and Communities of Practice question and get a clear, step-by-step explanation grounded in how LING20010 is taught and assessed. Read this chapter free, then take your hardest questions to Sia.
