Syllabus

Introduction to Language and Technology

 

ENG1710, D514

TTh 4:00PM-5:40PM

G-603

 

Professor Ellis

Office/Hours: Namm N520, Wed 4:00-5:00PM and Th 2:30-3:30PM 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 language and technology through readings and discussion. 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.

NB: This is the regular, non-ID designated ENG1710 course.

 

Learning Objectives and Prerequisites 

Available here: http://www.citytech.cuny.edu/english/docs/courses/ENG1710.pdf

 

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).

 

Recommended Resources

• “New Media Dictionary” in Leonardo. Search JSTOR via http://library.citytech.cuny.edu.
• David McMurrey, Online Technical Writing, https://www.prismnet.com/~hcexres/textbook/.
• Purdue OWL, Professional and Technical Writing, https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/4/16/.
• Purdue OWL, APA Style, https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/2/10/.
• Laura Portwood-Stacer, “How to Email Your Professor (Without Being Annoying AF),” https://medium.com/@lportwoodstacer/how-to-email-your-professor-without-being-annoying-af-cf64ae0e4087#.1m6lc0rkd.
• David Dunning and TEDxED, “Why Incompetent People Think They’re Amazing,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOLmD_WVY-E.
• Cornell Note Taking Method, http://lsc.cornell.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Cornell-Note_Taking-System.pdf.
• Jennifer DesRochers, “How to Take Cornell Notes,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtW9IyE04OQ.

 

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 digital files for reading.

 

Grade Distribution

• In-Class Assignments, 30%
  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. Any material quoted from the reading should be cited according to APA style (see “Required Format for Papers” for more information).
• Research Paper Proposal, 10%
  Before endeavoring on the final project, students will write a 250-word proposal for a research paper that explores a contemporary technology through the lens of language and technology. The proposal should pose a question to be answered in the research paper, identify and describe the technology being investigated, and attempt to answer the research question with the knowledge already held by the student. On a separate page, students will write an alphabetized list of 5 potential library-based sources for their research.
• Research Paper, 30%
  Based on the final project research paper proposal, students will write a 2,500-word minimum research essay responding to their research question. This project requires at least 5 library-based, cited sources. In addition to these required sources, students may cite readings from class readings and non-library-based sources.
• Research Presentation, 10%
  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.
• Final Exam, 20%
  On the last day of class, students will respond in short essays to questions about the class readings, lecture, and discussion.

 

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. Following City Tech’s policy, attendance is recorded and reported for each class meeting. Attendance and class participation are essential and excessive absences may affect the final grade. Students who simply stop attending will receive a grade of “WU” (unofficial withdrawal – attended at least once).

 

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.

 

Accessibility Statement

City Tech is committed to supporting the educational goals of enrolled students with disabilities in the areas of enrollment, academic advisement, tutoring, assistive technologies and testing accommodations. If you have or think you may have a disability, you may be eligible for reasonable accommodations or academic adjustments as provided under applicable federal, state and city laws. You may also request services for temporary conditions or medical issues under certain circumstances. If you have questions about your eligibility or would like to seek accommodation services or academic adjustments, please contact the Center for Student Accessibility at 300 Jay Street room L-237, 718-260-5143 or http://www.citytech.cuny.edu/accessibility/.

 

Student Success and Time Management

To earn a passing grade, students should budget at least twice as many hours outside of class for studying as spent in class (https://www.ccny.cuny.edu/gened/studying). This is a four-credit hour class. We meet for four hours per week. This means that you should budget at least eight hours per week outside of class for studying. This studying time might include time for reading, making notes, and doing homework. The readings in our class are challenging. You will need to refer to outside sources (go-to sources include Google.com, Wikipedia.org, and Dictionary.com) to help you understand some of the basic ideas and terminology before we discuss the reading in class. Many other useful tips that we’ll discuss in class are on pages 4-8 of this PDF: http://pwp.gatech.edu/gt1000-textbook/wp-content/uploads/sites/658/2017/08/GT-1000-First-Year-Seminar-Full-Text.pdf.

 

 

Tentative Class Schedule

 

Tues, Jan. 29

Introduction to class.

Discuss syllabus, assignments, and readings.

Discuss student success strategies.

Carroll, L. (1871). Jabberwocky. Poetry Foundation. Retrieved from https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42916/jabberwocky

 

Thur, Jan. 31

Chiang, T. (2013). The truth of fact, the truth of feeling. Subterranean Press Magazine. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20150104225212/https://subterraneanpress.com/magazine/fall_2013/the_truth_of_fact_the_truth_of_feeling_by_ted_chiang

 

Tuesday, Feb. 5

Fromkin, V. (2003). What is language? In V. Fromkin, R. Rodman, & N. Hyams (Eds.), An introduction to language (pp. 3-29). Boston, MA: Wadsworth. Retrieved from http://relin.letras.ufmg.br/shlee/Fromkinch1.pdf

 

Thursday, Feb. 7

Wade, N. (2003, July 15). Early voices: the leap to language. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/15/science/early-voices-the-leap-to-language.html?pagewanted=all

 

Tuesday, Feb. 12

College is closed. No class.

 

Thursday, Feb. 14

Klein, S. J. (1985). What is technology? Bulletin of Science, Technology, & Society, 5, 215-218. Retrieved from: http://dtc-wsuv.org/wp/dtc375-spring15/files/2015/02/Kline-What-is-Technology.pdf

 

Tuesday, Feb. 19

Discuss Research Projects and Brainstorm Topics

Mufwene, S. S. (2013). Language as technology: some questions that evolutionary linguistics should address. In T. Lohndal (Ed.), In search of universal grammar: from old Norse to Zoque (pp. 327-358). Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Retrieved from http://mufwene.uchicago.edu/publications/Language%20as%20Technology.pdf

 

Thursday, Feb. 21

Ong, W. J. (1986). Writing is a technology that restructures thought. In G. Bauman (Ed.), The written word: literacy in transition (pp. 23-50). Oxford: Clarendon Press. Retrieved from https://www.bc.edu/content/dam/files/centers/boisi/pdf/f08/ong_article.pdf

 

Tuesday, Feb. 26

Mazlish, B. (1967). The forth discontinuity. Technology and Culture, 8(1), 1-15. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3101522 (Off-campus link: http://www.jstor.org.citytech.ezproxy.cuny.edu/stable/pdf/10.2307/3101522.pdf)

 

Thursday, Feb. 28

Derrida, J. (1974). Linguistics and grammatology. (G. C. Spivak, Trans.). Substance, 4(10), 127-181. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3683950 (Off-campus link: http://www.jstor.org.citytech.ezproxy.cuny.edu/stable/pdf/10.2307/3683950.pdf)

 

 

Tuesday, Mar. 5

Haraway, D. (1991). A cyborg manifesto: science, technology, and socialist-feminism in the late twentieth century. In Simians, cyborgs and women: the reinvention of nature (pp. 149-181). New York: Routledge. Retrived from https://wayback.archive.org/web/20120214194015/
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto.html

 

Thursday, Mar. 7

Final project proposal due.

Hayles, N. K. (1999). Toward embodied virtuality. In How we became posthuman: virtual bodies in cybernetics, literature, and informatics (pp. ). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Retrieved from http://www.ituniv.se/infoglueCalendar/digitalAssets/1783813728_BifogadFil_Hayles-Posthuman-excerpts.pdf.

 

Tuesday, Mar. 12

McLuhan, M. (1964). The medium is the message. In Understanding media: the extensions of man, New York: McGraw-Hill. Retrieved from http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/mcluhan.mediummessage.pdf

 

Thursday, Mar. 14

Kittler, F. (1987). Gramophone film typewriter. October, 41, 101-118. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/778332. (Off-campus link: http://www.jstor.org.citytech.ezproxy.cuny.edu/stable/pdf/778332.pdf)

 

Tuesday, Mar. 19

Kostelnick, C. (1990). Typographical design, modernist aesthetics, and professional communication. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 4(5), 5-24. Retrieved from http://jbt.sagepub.com/content/4/1/5 (Check OpenLab site for reading here)

 

Thursday, Mar. 21

Bolter, J. D. & Grusin, R. A. (1996). Remediation. Configurations, 4(3), 311-358. Retrieved from https://muse.jhu.edu/article/8107 (Off-campus link: https://muse-jhu-edu.citytech.ezproxy.cuny.edu/article/8107)

 

Tuesday, Mar. 26

Gitelman, L. (2006). Introduction: media as historical subjects. In Always already new (pp. 1-22). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Retrieved from: http://composingdigitalmedia.org/f15_mca/mca_reads/Gitelman-Always-Already-New-Intro-excerpts.pdf

 

Thursday, Mar. 28

Turner, F. (2005). Where the counterculture met the new economy: the WELL and the origins of virtual community. Technology and Culture, 46(3), 485-512. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40060901 (Off-campus link: http://www.jstor.org.citytech.ezproxy.cuny.edu/stable/pdf/40060901.pdf)

Tuesday, Apr. 2

Manovich, L. (2001). What is new media? In The language of new media (pp. 43-74). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Retrieved from http://faculty.georgetown.edu/irvinem/theory/Manovich
-LangNewMedia-excerpt.pdf

 

Thursday, Apr. 4

Galloway, A. R. (2011). What is new media?: ten years after the language of new media. Criticism, 53(3), 377-384. Retrieved from https://muse.jhu.edu/article/462193 (Off-campus link: http://muse.jhu.edu.citytech.ezproxy.cuny.edu/article/462193/pdf)

 

Tuesday, Apr. 9

McNeill, L. & Zuern, J. D. (2015). Online lives 2.0: introduction. Biography, 38(2), v-xlv. Retrieved from https://muse.jhu.edu/article/589981 (Off-campus link: http://muse.jhu.edu.citytech.ezproxy.cuny.edu:2048/article/589981)

 

Thursday, Apr. 11

Dash, A. (2016, Aug. 10). The lost infrastructure of social media. Retrieved from https://medium.com/@anildash/the-lost-infrastructure-of-social-media-d2b95662ccd3#.1shykvyun

 

Tuesday, Apr. 16

Nofre, D., Priestley, M., & Alberts, G. (2014). When technology became language: the origins of the linguistic conception of computer programming, 1950-1960. Technology and Culture, 55(1), 40-75. Retrieved from https://muse.jhu.edu/article/538908 (Off-campus link: http://muse.jhu.edu.citytech.ezproxy.cuny.edu/article/538908/pdf)

 

Thursday, Apr. 18

Discuss Research Project and Research Presentation

Hicks, M. (2017). Introduction. In Programmed inequality: how Britain discarded women technologists and lost its edge in computing (pp. 1-17). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20180117120332/https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/Introduction%20Programmed%20Inequality.pdf

 

Spring Recess: No class on Tuesday, Apr. 23 or Thursday, Apr. 25

 

Tuesday, Apr. 30

Derrida, J. (1988). Signature event context. In Limited inc (pp. 1-23). Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20150915102433/http://users.clas.ufl.edu/burt/inc.pdf

 

Thursday, May 2

Hart-Davidson, W. (2001). On writing, technical communication and information technology: the core competencies of technical communication. Technical Communication, 48(2), 145-155. Retrieved from https://msu.edu/~jmonberg/415/Schedule_files/hart-davidson_thecore.pdf

 

Tuesday, May 6

Final Project Studio Time

 

Thursday, May 9

Final Project Studio Time

 

Tuesday, May 14

Final Project Deliverables Due

Final Project Presentations Group 1

 

Thursday, May 16

Final Project Presentations Group 2

 

Tuesday, May 21

Final Exam