Measuring meaning is a central problem in cultural sociology and word embeddings may offer powerful new tools to do so. But like any tool, they build on and exert theoretical assumptions. In this paper I theorize the ways in which word embeddings model three core premises of a structural linguistic theory of meaning: that meaning is relational, coherent, and may be analyzed as a static system. In certain ways, word embedding methods are vulnerable to the same, enduring critiques of these premises. In other ways, they offer novel solutions to these critiques. More broadly, formalizing the study of meaning with word embeddings offers theoretical opportunities to clarify core concepts and debates in cultural sociology, such as the coherence of meaning. Just as network analysis specified the once vague notion of social relations (Borgatti et al. 2009), formalizing meaning with embedding methods can push us to specify and reimagine meaning itself.
翻译:测量含义是文化社会学和语言嵌入中的一个中心问题。 测量含义是文化社会学和语言嵌入中的一个中心问题。 但是,与任何工具一样,它们也可以提供强大的新工具。 但是,它们与任何工具一样,它们可以建立并运用理论假设。 在本文中,它们用理论理论来解释将文字嵌入模式的三种核心前提,即结构性语言含义理论:这个含义是关联的,连贯的,可以作为一个静态系统加以分析。 在某些方面,语言嵌入方法容易与这些前提相同,耐久的批评。 以其他方式,它们为这些批评提供了新颖的解决方案。 更广泛地说, 将用词嵌入词对含义的研究正规化提供了理论机会,以澄清文化社会学中的核心概念和辩论,例如含义的一致性。 正如网络分析明确了一度模糊的社会关系概念(Borgatti等人,2009年), 以嵌入方法将含义正规化可以推动我们定义和再造意。