|
|
TECHNOLOGY PAGE INDEX
Written Language: The World's Only
Indispensable Technology
What would happen to society if everybody
woke up one morning without the capacity to read and write? Or even to learn to
read and write?
Within a short time there would be:
No schools, colleges or universities
No libraries, books, newspapers, magazines or anything else related to the printed
word
No telephones (even if we had oral language, there would be no educated people or
written records and specifications to build and maintain telecommunications systems)
No radio or television (same reason)
No computers
No Internet
No stock markets
No cars, trucks, ships, trains, or aircraft (it takes educated people using written
records and specifications to build and maintain such technology)
No electricity or anything that runs on electricity or battery power
No modern medicine and health care
Etc., etc.
[To Technology Index]
In other words, without written language,
we would revert to a society of hunting, gathering, and primitive agriculture.
The same cannot be said of any other
single technology, be it the microchip, the internal combustion engine, or the
electric power grid. Modern, complex societies can exist without these things, but not
without written language.
The world’s only indispensable
technology is written language.
"Until McLuhan ... no one thought of seeing language as
technology."—Robert Fulford, writer (Globe & Mail, June
2000)
"Language is still the most fantastic technology we have."—Christopher
Dewdney, poet.
"The real technology—behind all of our other technologies—is
language. It actually creates the world our consciousness lives in."—Norman
Fischer in Wired (Jan 99)
"The only thing that I'd rather own than Windows [operating system] is
the English language."—Scott McNealy, Chair & CEO, Sun
Microsystems
Technology by definition is the conversion
of something we’ve learned into something we can make practical use of.
We use language reference tools such as
dictionaries and thesauruses to help us become more skilled in using this
technology—to help us convert the words and phrases we’ve learned into something
we can make practical use of, namely, articulate, clear, convincing, persuasive language.
[To Technology Index]
Symbolic Representation
The use of ideas, images, or other symbols
to stand for objects or events is called symbolic representation. In the context of human
language, symbolic representation is achieved using words. Facility with symbolic
representation in the form of languages distinguishes humankind from other animals.
(Contrary to popular notions, chimpanzees and gorillas do not have the
capacity to learn language. Even with 15 or 20 years of training, they are unable to learn
any more "language" than a smart border collie or German shepherd.)
Language is a rule-governed system of
arbitrary symbols that can be combined in countless ways to communicate information.
The principle underlying grammar is
unusual in the natural world. A grammar is an example of a "discrete combinatorial
system." A limited number of discrete elements (in this case, words) are sampled,
combined, and permuted to create larger structures (in this case, sentences) with
properties that are quite distinct from those of their elements. . . . In a discrete
combinatorial system like language, there can be an unlimited number of completely
distinct combinations with an infinite range of properties. (Pinker, S. The Language Instinct. New York,
NY: HarperCollins, 1994)
[To Technology Index]
All languages include:
phonology—a set of sounds
lexicon—a list of words
morphology—rules for combining the smallest
meaningful
units to form or alter words
syntax—ways in which words are organized into
phrases and sentences
semantics—word, phrase and sentence meanings
pragmatics—rules governing conversation and social
use of language
The use of language enables humankind to
develop advanced cognitive abilities. Cognitive development relates to the changes in a
person’s memory, thinking,use of language, and other mental skills as they develop
from infancy to adulthood.
In addition to developing cognitive
competence, humans also experience and display feelings, emotions and moods. In
particular, our emotional state or the emotional state we desire to elicit influences our
choice of words.
[To Technology Index]
Words Convey Intellectual and Emotional Meaning
Simultaneously
Every human language enables people to
communicate both intellectually and emotionally because words and phrases convey both
cognitive and affective meaning simultaneously. "Affective" means influenced by
or resulting from emotions.
The connotative associations
of a given word or phrase in a given context are every bit as real as the denotative
meaning. For example, words such as "celebration," "springtime," and
"kiss" arouse unique assemblages of positive emotions. Words such as
"homeless," "cancer," and "rape" summon clouds of negative
emotions. Many words and phrases, such as "bullfight" and "family
reunion," call up mixed positive and negative emotions. Connotative meaning also
includes the evocation of other sensations and impressions, such as power (e.g.,
"war") and activity (e.g., "carnival").
[To Technology Index]
The Post-information Society
The importance of the emotional component
in communication looms large and is growing rapidly. Consider these remarks by Dr. Rolf
Jensen, a pre-eminent expert on the future of technology, and author of Dream Society:
How the Coming Shift From Information to Imagination Will Transform Your Business
(McGraw-Hill, September, 1999). In the October 1999 issue of Fast Company, Jensen
observes:
We are in the twilight of a society
based on data. As information and intelligence become the domain of computers, society
will place new value on the one human ability that can't be automated: emotion . . . The
language of emotion will affect everything from our purchasing decisions to how well we
work with others.
Connotative Reference technology does not,
of course, automate emotion. What it does is "capture" emotional or connotative
meaning in language, making it possible, for the first time in the history of written
language, to create connotative language reference tools.
[To Technology Index]
How Is It Possible to "Capture"
Emotion in Language?
You will not find a detailed description
of the inner workings of Connotative Reference technology at this Web site (or any other
Web site!). What follows is a brief general description of the lines of thinking that led
to the development of the technology.
Dictionaries, thesauruses, and other
denotative language reference products are created from vast electronically-stored
databases of words and phrases that are linked to contextual usage, parts of speech,
etymological data, and other variables. Some of these databases are proprietary, others
are more generally available. For example, the largest such database in English is the
British National Corpus®:
The British National Corpus®, a
collaboration between Longman, Oxford University Press, Chambers, Harrap, the Oxford
University Computing Service, the University of Lancaster, and the British Library, with
the support of the Department of Trade and Industry, was compiled between 1991 and 1994.
It consists of 100 million words of British English—90 million of written text and 10
million of spoken text—sampled from 1960 on. Particular attention has been paid to
the internal balance of the corpus, including manuscript materials and ephemera.
Crystal, David. The Cambridge
Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
[To Technology Index]
None of these databases contains
quantified connotative data. Historically, it has never been possible to pin down
emotional or connotative meaning in any language, the way it has long been possible to pin
down rational or denotative meaning.
Today, however, so-called "soft"
variables, including emotions, attitudes, and preferences, can be measured accurately.
For example, pollsters conducting voter
preference surveys during election campaigns have no way of knowing objectively
whether a person being polled is telling the truth. And some polling subjects obviously do
not tell the truth. Moreover, those polled about voting preferences prior to elections are
under no obligation to actually vote on election day. And some of them obviously
don’t vote.
Yet, despite what would appear to be
numerous factors mitigating against the accuracy of opinion polls, scientifically
conducted polling is in fact very accurate. For example, the Gallup organization has
correctly predicted the outcome of every American presidential election since 1936
(including the Truman election of 1948), and has also correctly predicted every
Congressional election, for a total of 30 major elections. Average deviation of Gallup
surveys from election outcomes has been -0.11% over all 30 elections.
[To Technology Index]
In general, measurement of emotions and
attitudes follows this sort of reasoning:
1. Anything
that exists, exists in some quantity.
2. If it
exists in some quantity, it can be measured.
3. Emotions
and attitudes exist; therefore they exist in some quantity and therefore they can be
measured, or "captured."
Here's a slightly more detailed
explanation:
1. Science is
the systematic study of existence (matter and energy in a space-time continuum), generally
referred to as "nature."
2. Scientific
study means systematically identifying nature’s components (variables), measuring
them numerically, and comparing them objectively (replicable experimentation) with a view
to predicting natural phenomena, usually by employing mathematical tools.
3. Human
beings and other animals exist as part of nature.
4. Human
beings and other animals also perceive nature, mentally process what they perceive
(intellectually and emotionally), and behave accordingly.
5. Human
beings have the capability to systematically study animal perception (including human
perception), mental processing (intellectual and emotional), and resulting behavior.
6. The
natural phenomena we call emotions, which our perceptions tell us actually do exist, can
be identified in terms of variables, and can therefore be measured numerically, stored
systematically (in a database), compared objectively, and analyzed mathematically.
[To Technology Index]
Strictly speaking, "connotative
meaning" embraces all images, perceptions, and emotions associated with a
word or phrase. For example, if you live in the United States, the word "train"
may evoke a specific image of an Amtrak train speeding through an urban landscape. If you
live in Canada, the word "train" may evoke a specific image of a passenger train
winding through the Canadian Rockies. Such images differ for each individual.
However, all the members of a society
share the underlying emotional connotations and connotations of power, activity,
abstraction, and other variables that are associated with a word such as
"train". It is these root, elemental, "in-common" connotations that
Connotative Reference technology makes available.
[To Technology Index] |
