The Geometry of Culture: Analyzing the Meanings of Class through Word Embeddings

We argue word embedding models are a useful tool for the study of culture using a historical analysis of shared understandings of social class as an empirical case. Word embeddings represent semantic relations between words as relationships between vectors in a high-dimensional space, specifying a relational model of meaning consistent with contemporary theories of culture. Dimensions induced by word differences ( rich – poor) in these spaces correspond to dimensions of cultural meaning, and the projection of words onto these dimensions reflects widely shared associations, which we validate with surveys. Analyzing text from millions of books published over 100 years, we show that the markers of class…

• JT
  John Templeton Foundation
• DO
  Division of Social and Economic Sciences

  Awards: 1422902, 1158803
• AF
  Air Force Office of Scientific Research

  Award: FA9550-15-1-0162