Our research approaches language from a social networks perspective. We show how individuals’ social network structure influences how good individuals are at understanding others and at expressing themselves. We also examine whether one of the reasons that languages differ from each other is because they are spoken by communities with differnet social structures. We examine these questions using a combination of individual differences, experimental, and computational methods, and across different linguistic levels.
LATEST NEWS
Check out our latest papers:
- Lev-Ari, S., Stamp, R., de Vos, C., Yano, U., Nyst, V., & Emmorey, K. (2025) The relationship between community size and iconicity in sign languages. Cognitive Science, 49, 6, e70074.
TDLR Communication is harder in larger communities, so larger languages are often easier to learn and use, to overcome the difficulty. For example, larger spoken languages are more sound symbolic (see my paper from 2021!). This paper tests whether large sign languages are also more iconic than smaller ones, and finds that they are, at least with regards to non-social signs.
- Lev-Ari, S. (2025) Sorries seem to have the harder words. British Journal of Psychology
TDLR Apologies are cheap talk. How can apologizers make them more convincing? By making them more costly. Study 1 shows that people use longer words when apologizing. Study 2 shows that people perceive apologies with longer words as more apologetic.
- Rühle, M-C. & Lev-Ari, S. (2025) Do native and non-native speakers make different judicial decisions? Bilingualism: Language &and Cognition, 28, 1, 146-153.
TDLR Speakers are less emotional in their foreign than native language. We show that this leads non-native speakers to be less sensitive to emotional mitigating circumstances when making judicial decisions.
- Lev-Ari, S. (2024) The influence of community structure on how communities categorize the world. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 50, 8, 1249–1264.
TLDR Languages differ in how they categorize the world. The paper shows that larger communities create more expressive categories that allow them to communicate more successfully. It shows this via agent-based simulations over different types of meaning spaces.
Read and listen to recent media coverage of our research:
- Interview on Inspirit (BBC radio London) about linguistic devices in apologies, May 2025 (starts at 2h:39m:15s)
- The Conversation, May 2025 – How to make your apology more effective – new research
- The Times, May 2023 – Linguists find big things are named with small words around the world
- New York Times, December 2022 – Curse Words Around the World Have Something in Common (We Swear)
Upcoming presentations:
23/1/2025: University of Saarland, LangSci Series (Saarbrucken, Germany)
13/2/2025: Goldsmiths University, Psychology Department seminar (London, UK)