Language, Technology, and Society

This course engages with the history of language technology and its functions and effects, from the invention of writing through various pre-modern technologies to the Internet era and present day. Major topics include the invention of writing and comparison of writing systems, writing as a cultural and social practice through history, the printing press and the effects of widespread literacy, and the use of machines and early computers to speak, listen, and understand. The final section of the course focuses on the proliferation of electronic forms of language technology and the functions these serve in modern society, as well as the changes such technologies might produce in modern language. This is a Writing Intensive course.

Fall, Spring

030950