Language & Technology

Social media's incredible speed for circulation and ability to 'share' is an affordance of social media platforms. An affordance that Beyoncé utilised in an entrepreneurial fashion when she 'dropped' her self titled album at the end of 2013. She simply posted a short sample video on Instagram, her Facebook page and YouTube to announce that she was releasing a secret, visual album at mid-night. This style of announcement was a brilliant business move as it created instant hype - 340,000 copies were sold in the week ending Dec. 22 (first week of surprise release). This was only possible because of the technology; the ability to share worldwide instantly, 'hash tags' and 'sharing' allowed such a hype to be created and allowed millions to view her sample.

Alexander Graham Bell (Inventor of the Telephone) Research

Bell had long been fascinated by the idea of transmitting speech and by 1875 had come up with a simple receiver that could turn electricity into sound; “If I could make a current of electricity vary in intensity precisely as the air varies in density during the production of sound, I should be able to transmit speech telegraphically.” Others were working along the same lines, including an Italian-American Antonio Meucci, and debate continues as to who should be credited with inventing the telephone. However, Bell was granted a patent for the telephone on 7th March 1876 and it developed quickly. Within a year the first telephone exchange was built in Connecticut and the Bell Telephone Company was created in 1877, with Bell the owner of a third of the shares, quickly making him a wealthy man.

The telephone has made communication more efficient and faster since it was first developed. There is no doubt that it has made a dramatic impact on writing and teaching. In some respects it has moved us back to the oral culture that we originated from and in other respects it has aided in the proliferation of the written text. The telephone has transformed society’s social behaviour by changing the way we communicate with each other. The telephone has fostered a whole host of new inventions, both the cellular phone and the internet are a result of the telephone system. We can now read up on an obscure subject over the internet and then phone a friend immediately to discuss it. Ursula Franklin claims technology is more than the sum of its wheels, gears, transmitters.  It is a system that involves organization, procedures, symbols, new words, equations and most of all, a mind-set (Franklin, 1999). The telephone is prime example of what Franklin was referring to. Just as writing changed our thought processes the telephone has also changed our mind-set to a more complex way of thinking and continues to impact us as we move into the twenty-first century. Mark Twain seemed to have summed up our love hate relationship with the telephone through his following quote.

"The human voice carries too far as it is.. and now you fellows come along and seek to complicate matters..."-Mark Twain on the invention of the telephone.

Analysis of Transcript

This was a conversation between myself and a friend (Natalya). She was guiding me to recreate a simple image she had drawn of a circle, square and triangle with smiling faces, legs and arms.

Throughout the conversation repetition was frequent, especially Natalya's use of 'little leggies' this was to aid my understanding of her instructions because once I had created it the first time, this repeating term made it clear that she wished for me to recreate the same 'legs' within the image. The terms she chose were colloquial, slightly comical and expressed the cartoon aspect of this image. This phrase hints on coinage, for it is not a dictionary word, technically it is a phrase that Natayla invented.

The conversation was between two friends so most of the language was colloquial, reflecting on the relaxed environment and relationship between us as speakers. It was friendly, informal and clearly unpractised; 'then they gotta do'. The frequent pauses for thought in conversation again reflect the improvisation of the conversation; 'draw a circle round it (2),  I'm not meant to see this, am I?' this pause shows that the question was an after thought. This interrogative sentence is only made that way by the tag question at the end, else is may be exclamatory. The tag question is asking for clarification from, in this instance, me.

The transcript highlights the number of fillers in our idiolects; 'umm' and 'like' were most commonly used, often mid instruction as Natalya considered if her method of instruction was working or how to proceed. Mine were often sarcastic in a thoughtful manner; 'ummm (.) ok' because my dialect was not as frequent as Natayla's due to the nature of the activity. This use created humour, again because of the nature of our friendship, such humour is generally only used between friends because it can easily be misunderstood as rude but a friend understands the intentions of the speaker.

There was re-occurring back channel agreement, often including phrases such as 'right' and 'ok' from myself. This is conversational, to show Natalya my understanding and the fact that I was listening and following, it is not used to interrupt, from this I intend Natalya to continue what she is saying.

Laughter was continual, often muffling the speech; 'yeh it looks good (1) both laugh' this gives the sentence a completely different tone and meaning, we both laughed because in comparison to the original it was not that 'good'. Our laughter reflects our comfort with one another throughout the conversation.