An analysis of language in use employing the CofP framework also has features
in common with social network analysis (cf. Bortoni-Ricardo 1985, Milroy 1987,
Lippi-Green 1989, Kerswill 1994). But again, the two frameworks can usefully
be distinguished. Both include some distinction between core membership and
peripheral membership. The ideas of measuring an individual’s ties within a network (multiplex and uniplex), and of the density of a network as a whole, are
similar to the idea that membership in a CofP is acquired as the result of a process
of learning. Such measures provide an escape from unhelpful dichotomies – a
point elaborated in Bergvall’s article in this collection.