more on language functions, mcluhan and burke created by brett oppegaard for washington state...
TRANSCRIPT
More on language functions, McLuhan
and Burke
Created by Brett Oppegaardfor Washington State
University's DTC 375 class, spring 2010
How do we use language?
• To communicate ideas, exchange facts and opinions … yes, and how else?
Source: The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language
How do we use language?
• Emotional expression
Oops! Ow! Darn it!
Source: The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language
How do we use language?
• Social interaction
Good morning, lovely dayPleased to meet youBless you! … Thank you!
Source: The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language
How do we use language?
• As rhythmic sound
Shirley Oneple, Shirley Twople … Shirley TenpleI like coffee, I like tea …
Source: The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language
How do we use language?
• As graphical representations
Source: The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language / Howdesign.com / tkhere.blogspot.com
How do we use language?
• To try to control reality
‘I baptize you …’I name this ship ‘Titanic’
Source: The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language
How do we use language?
• Recording the facts
Genealogy CensusLaw casesImpossible to predict how it will be used in the future (when it’s ‘communicated’)
Source: The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language
How do we use language?
• Instrument of thought
32 plus 19 equals 51 So if I put this nail here …Rough draft, gets thoughts flowing
Source: The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language
How do we use language?
• Expression of identity
Go Cougs!Four more years!
Source: The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language
Terms to know and use
• Remediation – the process by which computer graphics, virtual reality and the World Wide Web define themselves by borrowing from and refashioning media such as painting, photography, television and film.
Source: Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin’s “Remediation: Understanding New Media.”
Terms to know and use
• Immediacy – is the perfection, or erasure, of the gap between the signifier and the signified, such that a representation is perceived to be the thing itself. As Burke describes ‘naive verbal realism’ as a symbol being perceived as a window into the real, immediacy is a ‘style of visual representation whose goal is to make the viewer forget the presence of the medium,’ canvas, screen, etc.
Source: Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin’s “Remediation: Understanding New Media.”
Terms to know and use
• Hypermediacy – In the opposite way, this is a ‘style of visual representation whose goal is to remind the viewer of the medium.’
Think opaque hypermediacy versus transparent immediacy
Source: Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin’s “Remediation: Understanding New Media.”
McLuhan-Fiore reading• In what ways did our society's transition from
'the magic world of the ear' to the 'neutral world of the eye' change how we live? For the better? For the worse?
• McLuhan (p.26) argues that 'all media work us over completely. They are so pervasive in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical and social consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered. … Any understanding of social and cultural change is impossible without a knowledge of the way media work as environments.'
Kenneth Burke's definition of man
• Man is the symbol-using (symbol-making, symbol-misusing) animal
• Inventor of the negative• Separated from his natural condition by
instruments of his own making• Goaded by the spirit of hierarchy• And rotten with perfection.
Defining the terms
What is a map?What is a map?
'A representation, usually on a plane surface, of all or part of the earth or some other body
showing a group of features in terms of their relative size and position.'- cartographer Norman Thrower
Defining the terms
What is a map?What is a map?
'Maps have the character of being textual in that they have words associated with them, that they employ a system of symbols within
their own syntax, that they function as a form of writing (inscription), and that they are
discursively embedded within broader contexts of social action and power.'
- geographer John Pickles
Defining the terms
What is a map?What is a map?