Understanding Language And Travel Behavior On An Online Marketplace In The Sharing Economy

Abstract

For decades, the question of if language shapes thought has been debated, namely between two theories: the Whorf hypothesis (language does shape thought) and Chomsky’s concept of Universal Grammar (language does not shape thought). While Universal Grammar has been commonly accepted, recent, consistent research has demonstrated that language does indeed shape thought. This research is done in the linguistics from a cognitive science perspective. No research addresses language’s impact on travel behavior. In this past decade, globalization has connected people across the world as is evident in online marketplaces in the sharing economy (i.e. Airbnb, Uber, etc.). The users come from many different cities, countries, and in effect, linguistic groups. My research draws from these trends in research and industry to understand if language shapes travel behavior and if so, how. Through topic extraction model and through statistical tests, I find that language shapes travel behavior for English-, French-, Portuguese-, and Spanish-speaking Airbnb guests. This is important for researchers because it shows that Big Data analytics can be used to answer linguistic-theory driven questions and is important for businesses (i.e. Airbnb) because it demonstrates how they can gain competitive advantage through personalization of services based on linguistic profiles.