Syllabus

You may download a copy of the syllabus from here (ellis-jason-2016-fall-eng1710-syllabus), or read it below.

Introduction to Language and Technology

 

ENG1710, E210

MW 6:00-7:40PM

V103B

 

Professor Ellis

Office/Hours: Namm N520, Th 3:00PM-5:00PM or by appointment.

jellis@citytech.cuny.edu

http://dynamicsubspace.net

 

Course Description

In this rewarding and challenging introductory class, we will endeavor to understand the deep and complex relationship between human language and human technology. You will apply your insights and discoveries to a major research project focused on a single form of technology-mediated communication. What you learn will have important significance to a successful career in technical communication. We will raise these issues during lecture and discussion. The catalog course description, objectives, and prerequisites are attached.

 

Required Texts

Available online by direct link or via the library’s database holdings (requires on-campus network access and/or activated library card account).

  1. Ted Chiang, “The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling,” https://subterraneanpress.com/magazine/fall_2013/the_truth_of_fact_the_truth_of_feeling_by_ted_chiang.
  2. Halvor Eifring and Rolf Theil: Linguistics for Students of Asian and African Languages, Chapter 1, “What is Language?”, https://www.uio.no/studier/emner/hf/ikos/EXFAC03-AAS/h05/larestoff/linguistics/.
  3. Nicholas Wade, “Early Voices: The Leap to Language,” The New York Times (15 July 2003), http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/15/science/early-voices-the-leap-to-language.html?pagewanted=all.
  4. Salikoko S. Mufwene, “Language as Technology: Some Questions That Evolutionary Linguistics Should Address,” http://mufwene.uchicago.edu/publications/Language%20as%20Technology.pdf.
  5. Walter J. Ong, “Writing is a Technology That Restructures Thought,” in The Written Word: Literacy in Transition, Ed. Gerd Baumann, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986, https://www.bc.edu/content/dam/files/centers/boisi/pdf/f08/ong_article.pdf.
  6. Bruce Mazlish, “The Fourth Discontinuity,” Technology and Culture 1 (Jan 1967), http://www.jstor.org/stable/3101522.
  7. Jacques Derrida, “Linguistics and Grammatology,” translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Substance10 (Autumn 1974), http://www.jstor.org/stable/3683950.
  8. Donna Haraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto,” https://wayback.archive.org/web/20120214194015/http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto.html.
  9. Katherine Hayles, How We Became Posthuman, Chapter 1: “Toward Embodied Virtuality,” http://www.ituniv.se/infoglueCalendar/digitalAssets/1783813728_BifogadFil_Hayles-Posthuman-excerpts.pdf.
  10. Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, Chapter 1: “The Medium is the Message,” http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/mcluhan.mediummessage.pdf.
  11. Friedrich Kittler, “Gramophone Film Typewriter,” October 41 (Summer 1987), http://www.jstor.org/stable/778332.
  12. Charles Kostelnick, “Typographical Design, Modernist Aesthetics, and Professional Communication,” Journal of Business and Technical Communication 5 (1990), http://jbt.sagepub.com/content/4/1/5.
  13. David Bolter and Richard A. Grusin, “Remediation,” Configurations 4.3 (Fall 1996), https://muse-jhu-edu.citytech.ezproxy.cuny.edu/article/8107.
  14. Lisa Gitelman, Always Already New, “Introduction,” http://composingdigitalmedia.org/f15_mca/mca_reads/Gitelman-Always-Already-New-Intro-excerpts.pdf.
  15. Fred Turner, “Where the Counterculture Met the New Economy: The WELL and the Origins of Virtual Community,” Technology and Culture 3 (Jul 2005), http://www.jstor.org/stable/40060901.
  16. Lev Manovich, Language of New Media, Chapter 1: What is New Media?,” http://faculty.georgetown.edu/irvinem/theory/Manovich-LangNewMedia-excerpt.pdf.
  17. Lev Manovich, “Notes on Instagrammism and Contemporary Cultural Identity,” http://manovich.net/index.php/projects/notes-on-instagrammism-and-mechanisms-of-contemporary-cultural-identity.
  18. Laurie McNeill and John David Zuern, “Online Lives 2.0: Introduction.” Biography 2 (Spring 2015), http://muse.jhu.edu.citytech.ezproxy.cuny.edu:2048/article/589981.
  19. Donald C. Jones, “Thinking Critically About Digital Literacy: A Learning Sequence of Pens, Pages, and Pixels,” Pedagogy2 (Spring 2007), https://muse.jhu.edu/article/215284.
  20. Anil Dash, “The Lost Infrastructure of Social Media,” https://medium.com/@anildash/the-lost-infrastructure-of-social-media-d2b95662ccd3#.1shykvyun.
  21. David Nofre, Mark Priestley, and Gerald Alberts,” When Technology Became Language: The Origins of the Linguistic Conception of Computer Programming, 1950-1960,” Technology and Culture 1 (Jan 2014), http://muse.jhu.edu/article/538908/.
  22. Jacques Derrida, “Signature Event Context,” http://users.clas.ufl.edu/burt/inc.pdf.
  23. William Hart-Davidson, “On Writing, Technical Communication and Information Technology: The Core Competencies of Technical Communication,” Technical Communication 2 (May 2001), http://www.ingentaconnect.com.citytech.ezproxy.cuny.edu:2048/contentone/stc/tc/2001/00000048/00000002/art00005.

 

Recommended Resources

 

 

Required Resources

  • Computer access, word processing software, and a means of saving your work securely.
  • Access to your City Tech email.
  • Activate your library account at the front desk of the City Tech Library for journal access via your library account number.
  • Access and accounts at openlab.citytech.cuny.edu and other designated website.
  • Flash drive for saving your work and/or having scratch space for in-class project work (always bring to class).
  • Cloud-based storage for saving a backup of all your work.
  • Apps for your phone, tablet, and/or computer that can open TXT and PDF files for reading.

 

Grading

Assignment Description Percentage of Final Grade
Daily Writing, In-Class Assignments, and Pop Quizzes After each class, students will write a 250-word minimum (writing more is recommended) summary of the reading and discussion in their own words (quoting is acceptable if properly cited but quotes do not apply to the minimum word count). These are due at the beginning of the next class. These should be double-spaced and printed. If more than one page in length, print on one side only and staple the pages together (no folded edges, no paper clips, etc). Assignments done improperly will not be accepted. Any material quoted from the reading should be cited according to APA style (see “Required Format for Papers” for more information). 25%
Final Project Research Paper Abstract Before endeavoring on the final project, students will write a 250-word abstract describing the technology selected and the general arguments/discussion to be made. On a separate page, students will a working bibliography of at least ten article sources they plan to look at as part of their research. 10%
Final Project Research Paper Students will choose one specific type of digitally-mediated communication and write a 2500-word minimum research essay discussing how the technology and language influence one another. This project requires at least 10 cited journal articles (other sources are permissible in addition to the 10 cited journal articles). 30%
Final Project Presentation Each student will have an opportunity to present a condensed, professionally delivered presentation based on their research paper. It must be between 5 and 10 minutes in length, and use PowerPoint as the visual component of the presentation. 20%
Final Exam On the last day of class, students will respond to written questions about the class readings, lecture, and discussion. 15%

 

Policy for Late Work

Assignments submitted late or exams taken late will incur a 10-point reduction for each day that they are late. However, no assignments will be accepted after the last day of class. If a student knows that work cannot be completed on time, he or she should contact me or visit my office hours to discuss.

 

Attendance and Lateness Policy

The expectation for successful and respectful college students is to arrive on time and attend all classes. The college permits students to miss 10% of a class (three absences) for whatever reason. In our class, each additional absence will reduce your final grade by 10 points (equivalent of a full letter grade). Missing too many classes will obviously result in failure of the class. Also, an absence does not excuse you from any assignments or exams. Use your absences wisely. Arriving late or leaving early will, depending on the specific situation, count as a full or partial absence.

 

Required Format for Papers

All formal writing and citations should follow APA guidelines (see the Purdue OWL APA section for more information: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/). Remember in your research paper that quoting is far more persuasive than paraphrasing, and in either case, your use of others ideas or writing must be properly cited to give credit where credit is due and to maintain your own academic integrity.

 

College Policy on Academic Integrity

Students who work with information, ideas, and texts owe their audience and sources accuracy and honesty in using, crediting, and citing sources. As a community of intellectual and professional workers, the College recognizes its responsibility for providing instruction in information literacy and academic integrity, offering models of good practice, and responding vigilantly and appropriately to infractions of academic integrity. Accordingly, academic dishonesty is prohibited in CUNY and at New York City College of Technology, and is punishable by penalties, including failing grades, suspension, and expulsion. The complete text of the College policy on Academic Integrity may be found in the catalog.

 


 

Tentative Class Schedule

Week Day Date In-Class Work Reading for Class Due Before Class
1 M 8/29 Discuss the syllabus and class policies.    
  W 8/31 Introductions

 

Read aloud and discuss Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky.”

    
2 M 9/5 No Class.    
  W 9/7   Reading 1 (see list above) Previous class’ reading and lecture summary.
3 M 9/12   Reading 2 Previous class’ reading and lecture summary.
  W 9/14   Reading 3 Previous class’ reading and lecture summary.
4 M 9/19   Reading 4 Previous class’ reading and lecture summary.
  W 9/21   Reading 5 Previous class’ reading and lecture summary.
5 M 9/26   Reading 6 Previous class’ reading and lecture summary.
  W 9/28 Introduce Final Project Reading 7 Previous class’ reading and lecture summary.
6 M 10/3 No class.    

 
  W 10/5   Reading 8 Previous class’ reading and lecture summary.
  Th 10/6 Monday schedule.

 

 

 Reading 9 Previous class’ reading and lecture summary.
7 M 10/10 No class.    
  W 10/12 No class.    
8 M 10/17   Reading 10 Final Project Abstract Due.

 

Previous class’ reading and lecture summary.
  W 10/19   Reading 11 Previous class’ reading and lecture summary.
9 M 10/24   Reading 12 Previous class’ reading and lecture summary.
  W 10/26   Reading 13 Previous class’ reading and lecture summary.
10 M 10/31   Reading 14 Previous class’ reading and lecture summary.
  W 11/2   Reading 15 Previous class’ reading and lecture summary.
11 M 11/7   Reading 16 Previous class’ reading and lecture summary.
  W 11/9   Reading 17 Previous class’ reading and lecture summary.
12 M 11/14   Reading 18 Previous class’ reading and lecture summary.
  W 11/16   Reading 19 Previous class’ reading and lecture summary.
13 M 11/21   Reading 20 Previous class’ reading and lecture summary.
  W 11/23   Reading 21 Previous class’ reading and lecture summary.
14 M 11/28   Reading 22 Previous class’ reading and lecture summary.
  W 11/30   Reading 23 Previous class’ reading and lecture summary.
15 M 12/5 Final Project Research   Previous class’ reading and lecture summary.
  W 12/7 Final Project Research    
16 M 12/12 Final Project Presentations   Final Project Deliverable Due.
  W 12/14 Final Project Presentations    
17 M 12/19 Last day of class.

Final Exam

    

 

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