tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21503568.post5674575875675776392..comments2023-11-03T06:32:28.410-04:00Comments on Staring At Empty Pages: The application becomes the verbBarry Leibahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14205294935881991457noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21503568.post-18973270201133836612010-05-24T08:48:58.989-04:002010-05-24T08:48:58.989-04:00We have certain habits that we default to when we ...We have certain habits that we default to when we don't have the language to say what we want to say (as when it is pertinent to the conversation what application you were using.)<br /><br />This tendency is natural. I see it as a path-of-least-resistance effect, just as with "texting" language. Language is not about rules as much as it is about communication within a social context. The context, more than anything, sets the rules. Our perception of our context helps us decide what rules we're playing by. While we have codified the rules for the purpose of teaching them, for editors, and to slow down the transformation of language, the social forces at work are powerful.<br /><br />We carry our context with us, and they have become part of our own thinking. As a techie, this probably was as obvious to you as it was to me back in undergraduate school when studying computer science gave me a whole new vocabulary which not only applied to my studies, but which I could use to talk to my friends about things outside of computer science. (Computer science becomes a metaphor for many things; the language of computer science is suddenly mediating our understanding of the world.) This is not only an effect that is seen in a group of geeks studying computer science; information processing theory (and other cognitive science theoretical perspectives which gained some popularity in the 80's) sought to understand human thought from the perspective of computing machines.<br /><br />When "texting" language pops up in other places, and when application-to-verb transformations creep into our language, we're seeing a bit of how people are thinking leaking out into their communication. To put it into more acceptable English is an act of translation. People aren't trying to be cool by using new language; that is the way they're thinking, and they've gotten it from social context.<br /><br />I'm still trying to figure out how much of Vygotsky is in Pygmalion. Which reminds me: there's a paper on the language of classrooms that I didn't have time to read during the semester, and it referenced ,y favorite George Bernard Shaw play.<br /><br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_in_the_Classroom<br /><br />This paper, however, was more about teacher expectation than it was on language reflecting situation.JP Burkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16796725364997136448noreply@blogger.com