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In the article, “Language as technology,” Salikoko S. Mufwene focuses on how languages can be construed as an emergent technology. Further, he defends his position that language is a technology, emerged out of necessity. As communities expanded, communicated facilitate the management of relationships and communities. The same mind that led to this new social structure also harnessed the hominine anatomical parts that appeared best suited for the purpose of speaking. Because technology has an all-encompassing meaning, he clarifies what he means by “technology.” He asserts that technology is means to fulfil a purpose. Scientific knowledge is applied to develop practical things. Language and technology are inextricably linked. Language allows interaction and communication. Language developed through hominines development of their anatomy to express thoughts and feelings, to relate past experiences, and to plan future events. Mufwene further speculates on the evolution of this technology. This development happened due to pressure arising from the hominines’ increasing mental and mental abilities. Mufwene points to some disadvantages of speech in early human. Signing is safer when communicating under water or hiding from a predator. In class we discussed one theory that may have given speech an advantage: sexual selection. Hominines possessing speech may have copulated easier. He analogizes the emergent language technology to technologies intrinsically different but produce similar results. What differentiates us from other animals is our mind which accounts for our cognition and cultures. Different hominine populations did solve their communication problems in identical ways, though they were developing technologies that homogenize the same anatomical form to produce speech and manual signs. He points to universal grammar, proposed by Noam Chomsky, which accounts for how languages evolve and for their commonalities.
We also discussed Charles Hockett design features of language which includes mode of communication, rapid fading, interchangeability, feedback, specialization, semanticity, arbitrariness, discreteness, dispalcement, productivity, cultural transmission, duality, prevarication, reflexiiveness, and learnability.
In the article, “Language as Technology” Salikoko S. Mufwene focuses on the aspect of language and how exactly it is a technology. He explains how technology first came to be since we are human beings it came out of instinct. As society grows we start to realize how important language is as a technology since you need to be able to speak with one and another to be able to thrive as a society. Technology he said was to fulfill a purpose and language was to talk to each other and enable each other with new ideas. Language and technology come hand to hand since both are needed. Language itself is the speaking of using words and talking to one another. As humans developed Mufwene tells us how human being’s and their mental capacity start to rapidly evolve. Unlike other regular animals we are able to constantly evolve in terms of language is one that itself is a huge difference between us and animals. Animals themselves use noises to indicate things where as humans can put words together to get the full meaning. Our cultures and cognition is what separates us from animals. Language itself constantly evolves although back then it was a lot different we used signs and other things. He points out that in order for us to survive like how other populations survive they have to constantly keep developing in terms of language and developing technologies. Hockett also explains how language is a huge chunk of things grouped together.
In the beginning of the article “Language as Technology” by Salikoko S. Mufwene he talks about how language possibly started through adaptation and exaptation. Adaptation is when organisms procreate for evolutionary purposes because of unfavorable conditions in order to pass on their genes for survival reasons. Exaptation is when one specific feature started off as one thing but evolved to use for a different purpose. Language was necessary for the evolutionary process of our ancestors because as communities grew they needed to be able to live harmoniously with one another. A major contributing of language was having the ability to use their voices to communicate with each other. Language is the basis of everything we use and over time it branched off into different technologies such as the writing system, typewriters, and computers. Technology also gives room for language to develop by making new words to explain different technological advances.
Language can also be manipulated in different ways but have the same meaning at
the end because of different grammar uses and syntax used in different countries. Sign language can also be seen as a type of technology because it uses hand movements as a tool to communicate something. Sign language follows grammar and a syntax just like verbally spoken languages. William Gibson a science fiction writer came up with this idea that if people are going to use technology they need to understand it to the fullest and because proficient at it. Use the technology to fit your personal needs and stretch the boundaries to be able to find new discoveries.
In the article, “language as Technology,” Salikoko S. Mufwene focuses on language and how grammars became the most important thing for those people who speak the language can communicate much easier. The title of this essay was about the growth from the environmental approach to phylogenetic. The author assumes that everything in the aspect of the long development of language that was brought to us by as a gift, to share our thoughts, feelings, emotions, and behavior. This was the way to communicate that is what Hockett said about it and describes it as “displacement”. Human languages enable us to talk about our past, present, and future.
Do languages really qualify as technology? In my opinion, I say yes. However, in the article, the author mentions that technology cannot be actual. It is not necessary for language to be one thing completed. The technology it is a way to follow your propose. It also helps us to find a solution for some problems either for life or information such as (college classes, schools, and other information in our daily life basis). “The differences between speech and singing deserve some attention.” For instance, the change from expression to phonetic utterances. They didn’t find a solution. Salikoko points out that grammar is very important in language and it evolves in communications.
Language can have different meaning but they all, in the end, means the same thing. However, we can say a sentence in many ways but it all means the same thing. Technology just helps us to find our goal and makes things easier for us in this world.
In his essay, “Language as Technology” Salikoko Mufwene first talks about how language has become incorporated into our society. Language is considered to be a ‘natural collective’ technology for populations that has become complex. Mufwene defines technology as a means to fulfill a purpose. He explains that the human lifestyle has become more outgoing and the groups that people lived in began to expand into larger groups. As the group started growing and becoming more complex, they needed a way to communicate to keep their groups intact and under control. One can see how language is used here as a technology to keep the group together and happy. Mufwene then goes on to talk about his belief of language development. He believes that languages are a form of technology that different populations developed gradually at different stages in the human evolution, to keep up with the quickly evolving rate of communication. He then goes on to talk about displacement, a term coined by Charles Hockett. Displacement is a feature in the human language which distinguishes our language from language that an animal uses. Displacement allows us to talk about the past, present and future and allows us “to develop narratives that have world-creating power”. Mufwene believes that there wouldn’t be a language for linguists to study today if hominines didn’t utilize vocalizations and gestures to produce speech and signs. Language is based on population and culture and varies as you move around and are systems whose elemental units are physical.
In the article, “Language as technology,” by Salikoko S. Mufwene, Mufwene discusses the idea of language itself is a technology. He describes technology as a means to fulfill a purpose. Mufwene says that language means to fill a purpose and that purpose is communication. We use language as a way to communicate within our society. Language allows interaction and communication with others. As we evolved so did our language and it did so rapidly. Unlike animals we were evolving rapidly and adapting to new surroundings was a survival skill for us. Using language to survive was a key thing for humans. While animals use noises and gestures to speak to each other we were able to develop words to talk to one another. This can be referred to as displacement. Displacement is a feature which distinguishes our language from animal language and this was developed by Charles Hockett. Language is constantly evolving throughout the years. In order to survive we must adapt to other languages and further developing languages as well. Technology and language do intertwine. Because Mufwene describes language as a technology in the sense that it is here to fulfill a purpose, language for use does exactly that. The purpose language is fulfilling is the purpose of communication with others. Languages throughout the world can have different sounds, syntax, and meanings but it was all developed for one purpose and that purpose is to communicate. It’s created and evolved so that we can easily communicate throughout our society.