Impoverished Language Technology: The Lack of (Social) Class in NLP

arXiv:2403.03874v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Since Labov's (1964) foundational work on the social stratification of language, linguistics has dedicated concerted efforts towards understanding the relationships between socio-demographic factors and language production and perception. Despite the large body of evidence identifying significant relationships between socio-demographic factors and language production, relatively few of these factors have been investigated in the context of NLP technology. While age and gender are well covered, Labov's initial target, socio-economic class, is largely absent. We survey the …

abstract arxiv class cs.ai cs.cl cs.cy evidence language linguistics nlp perception production relationships social technology type understanding work