Language dynamics within adaptive networks: An agent-based approach of nodes and links coevolution
Frontiers in Complex Systems(2023)
Abstract
Motivated by the dramatic disappearance of endangered languages observed in
recent years, a great deal of attention has been given to the modeling of
language competition in order to understand the factors that promote the
disappearance of a language and its unfolding dynamics. With this in mind, we
build on existing network models of language competition in bilingual
societies. These models deal with the interplay between the usage of a language
(link state) and the preference or attitude of the speakers towards the
language (node state). In this work, we allow for the case where agents have
the freedom to adapt their local interactions in accordance with their language
preference. This is modeled by introducing a local rewiring mechanism triggered
by the dissatisfaction of an agent with its usage of a given language. Our
numerical simulations show that permitting this freedom to agents likely
results in linguistically segregated communities for small network sizes.
However, for networks of sufficiently large size, the extinction of one of the
languages is the most probable scenario. Furthermore, we analyze how the
fraction of minority speakers changes with the system size and we find that
this fraction grows as the total population increases, which is consistent with
existing data. Overall, the results of this work help us understand the impact
of speakers' preferences and choices in the complex language landscape of
bilingual societies.
MoreTranslated text
Key words
adaptive networks,nodes,language,agent-based
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