The Effect of Technology on Language and the Importance of Language Technologies

Rafał Uzar The Effect of Technology on Language and the Importance of Language Technologies Kultura Popularna nr 4 (38), 30-40 2013 30 kultura popularna 2013 nr 4 (38) The Effect of Technology on Language Rafał Uzar and the Importance of Language Technologies DOI: 10.5604/16448340.1109975 Rafał Uzar T h e E f f e c t o f T e c h n o l o g y o n L a n g u a g e There were still occasions when words printed on‑ pieces of paper were the most convenient medium of communication. (Clarke, A. C. 1987:126) 1. Introduction Language and technology have always been intrinsically connected. In 1960, Ted Nelson developed ‘hypertext’ as part of the Xanadu Project, which lay the foundations for the invention of the World Wide Web by Tim Berners‑Lee almost thirty years later. Back in the 1960s, the celebrated writer, scientist and inventor Arthur C. Clarke envisaged a world in which computers could be accessed in one’s own home and could provide us with information to help in our daily needs. Clarke talked about people being able to access their bank accounts and buy theatre tickets with a console the size of a book. Floyd sometimes wondered if the Newspad, and the fantastic technology behind it, was the last word in man’s quest for perfect communications … It was hard to imagine how the system could be improved or made more convenient. But sooner or later, Floyd guessed, it would pass away, to be replaced by something as unimaginable as the Newspad itself would have been to Caxton or Gutenberg. There was another thought which a scanning of those tiny electronic headlines often invoked. The more wonderful the means of com‑ munication, the more trivial, tawdry, or depressing its contents seemed to be … the newspapers of Utopia, he had long decided, would be terribly dull. (Clarke, 1968:53) The following paper is divided into three sections. The first section will touch upon the historical context of technological development with refer‑ ence to language. The second section will focus on the idea that technology plays a leading role in changing language. This includes the internet as well as computers, tablets, smartphones, mobiles and the suchlike. The third section will deal with some of the language technologies and linguistic tools that are currently being used to manipulate, analyze and quantify language data, something never hitherto undertaken to this extent. 2. Typography as Energy In parallel with the sci‑fi prognostications and predictions of Arthur C. Clarke and William Gibson, the media theory scholar and philosopher Marshall McLuhan posited the idea of a “global village” in his 1962 The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man. Following in the footsteps of the great philosophers of human history, he also gave credence to the idea that human civilization had forever been riding on an evolutionary wave of intellectual development, spurred on by the invention of increasingly complex technologies. 31 Rafał Uzar is a graduate of Lancaster Univers‑ ity and the University of Łódź. He specializes in language technolo‑ gies, corpus linguistics, translation, translation training and journalism. 32 kultura popularna 2013 nr 4 (38) In fact, McLuhan was convinced that contemporary human civilization had recently crossed an event horizon and was moving headlong into a new phase of history and growth. The future was tangible but, as always, a nebulous unknown. The next medium, whatever it is (1) it may be the extension of consciousness, (2) will include television as its content, not as its environment, and (3) will transform television into an art form. A computer as (4) a research and com‑ munication instrument could (5) enhance retrieval, (6) obsolesce mass library organization, (7) retrieve the indi‑ vidual’s encyclopedic function and flip into (8) a private line to (9) speedily tailored data of (10) a saleable kind. (McLuhan, 1964:10) At a time where there were no PCs in our sense of the word, or the internet, both Arthur C. Clarke and Marshall McLuhan, to name but two scholars, were acutely aware of the feeling that the western world, and by extension human civilization, was at a remarkable tipping point and on the brink of technological progress. They both envisaged a world in which knowledge and data, embedded firmly in the linguistic sphere, would be of great if not central importance. Popular science, to name but one area of study, has seen a slew of publications in recent years documenting the role that technology has had in mankind’s development. A handful of example titles include: The Big Ideas That Changed the World (published 2010), Inventors That Changed the World (2011), Breverton’s Encyclopedia of Inventions: A Compendium of Technological Leaps, Groundbreaking Discoveries and Scientific Breakthroughs that Changed the World (2012), Inventions: A History of Key Inventions that Changed the World (2012), A History of the World in 100 Objects (2012). In each publication, similar inventions can be found. The wheel, electricity, the airplane, the printing press, the telephone, the steam engine, the radio, the television, the automobile, the computer and the internet are all among the top technologies. Of the eleven mentioned here, at least five (plus computers) are intrinsically linked to linguistic communication. What is more, each of these new technologies has helped shrink our world. And somewhere in the shadowy centuries that had gone before they had invented the most essential tool of all… They had learned to speak, and so had won their first great victory over Time… with the taming of fire, he had laid the foundations of technology… The tribe grew into the village, the village into the town. Speech became eternal, thanks to certain marks on stone and clay and papyrus. (Clarke, 1968:32) These advances more often than not go hand in glove with language (or even literacy). The former have had, and will continue to have, an overwhelming effect on the latter, and in turn have a residual effect on our cognitive ap‑ paratus. Writing has given us the ability to perform complex calculations and contemplate abstract philosophical notions, therefore, giving us the weaponry for cognitive advancement. Rafał Uzar T h e E f f e c t o f T e c h n o l o g y o n L a n g u a g e Marshall McLuhan was aware of this fact and in The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man posited an alluring concept – human history can be categorized into four discrete phases of development: Oral Culture Manuscript Culture Gutenberg Culture Electronic Culture The catalyst for the shift from one ‘culture’ (viz. epoch) to another is the crea‑ tion or invention of a new (communicative and/or linguistic) medium. Thus, the Manuscript Culture was preceded by the invention of (phonemic) writing systems, which also serves to explain why different societies, states, countries etc. can reside in different ‘cultures’ (to use McLuhan’s term). Therefore, the Sumerians and Egyptians w (...truncated)