Technolingualism: The Mind and the Machine

Since the earliest days of our species, technology and language have evolved in parallel. This book examines the processes and products of this age-old relationship: a phenomenon we're calling technolingualism -- the mutually influential relationship between language and technology. One the one hand, as humans advance technology to master, control, and change the world around us, our language adapts. More sophisticated social-cultural practices give rise to new patterns of linguistic communication. Language changes in its vocabulary, structures, social conventions, and ideologies. Conversely-and this side of the story has been widely overlooked-the unique features of human language can influence a technology's physical forms and technical processes. Technolingualism explores the fascinating ways, past and present, by which language and technology have informed each other's development. The book reveals important corollaries about the universal nature of language and, most importantly, what it means to be human. From our first babbling noises to the ends of our lives, we are innately attuned to the technologies around us, and our language reflects this. We are, all of us, technolinguals.

Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations Preface, or What This Book Is and Who It's for 1. Textualization of Language: Writing 1 First Interlude: How Writing Doesn't Affect Language 2. Mechanization of Language: The Printing Press and the Typewriter 3. Abstraction of Language: The Telegraph and Telephone 4. Digitization of Language: The Computer Second Interlude: Comparing Linguists' and Nonlinguists' Takes on CMC's Effect on Language 5. Mobilization of Language: The Cell Phone 6. Regeneration of Language: The Cochlear Implant Conclusions, or: What We've Learned through Exploring the Relationship between Language and Technology Notes Bibliography Index

About the Author :
James Pfrehm is Associate Professor at Ithaca College, USA

Review :
Technolingualism: The Mind and The Machine is a phenomenal work that invites the reader to escape to all stages in writing history and to delve into the lives of inventors, creators, and the nay-sayers who believed the development of technology was insane. An important sociolinguistic contribution to the history of CALL and recommended reading for all practitioners of language, linguistics, and writing. [Technolingualism] feels both long overdue and at the cutting edge ... A comprehensive account of language through the ages, using technology as the vehicle for the journey, meaning that language enthusiasts with little to no interest in technology will still enjoy this book. The book does a good job at identifying trends in relationships between language and technology historically ... [It] is written in a very conversational and accessible style and fits within the scope of much of the literature on the history of literacy. A good audience for this book would be undergraduates or non-linguists who are unfamiliar with technology and its relationship to language. Explains in detail the operation and functioning of specific language technologies, and ... synthesises the best of what historians, literary scholars, and linguists have to say about the broader impacts of technolingualism.