How can utilizing the PHP function substr_count help in determining the frequency of a specific word in a string?

To determine the frequency of a specific word in a string, you can utilize the PHP function substr_count. This function counts the number of times a substring appears in a given string. By passing the specific word and the string to substr_count, you can easily obtain the frequency of that word in the string.

$string = "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog";
$specific_word = "the";
$word_frequency = substr_count(strtolower($string), strtolower($specific_word));
echo "The word '$specific_word' appears $word_frequency times in the string.";