Wednesday, November 23, 2005
New Tech means the end of language barriers?
I'm not sure what I think of this article in Discovery promising the end of language barriers through technology advances. Of course, as someone who has invested a considerable amount of time into learning another language and teaching my own to others, I'm both threatened by this development and welcome it. On the other hand, I'm skeptical that any technology will enable one to speak another language with anything more than phrase book flatness and lack of nuance. On the other other hand, I have little doubt that for many, many people this will be an improvement. There's another consideration as well: the big three languages of the world are and will be for at least fifty years Chinese, English, and Spanish. English is the language of the elites, Chinese and Spanish the most spoken languages in the world. Knowing these three languages makes cute devices unnecessary.
Some things can't be done by technology however. In this word processor that Blogger provides, there is an option to "Moderate comments." For a fleeting second I thought that this was a way to somehow figure out if you have been too outrageous in your remarks and kind of blunt their edge--what a technology that would be, and one I dearly need. (Eudora attempts something like this, I believe, or at least warns of intemperate language.)
Some things can't be done by technology however. In this word processor that Blogger provides, there is an option to "Moderate comments." For a fleeting second I thought that this was a way to somehow figure out if you have been too outrageous in your remarks and kind of blunt their edge--what a technology that would be, and one I dearly need. (Eudora attempts something like this, I believe, or at least warns of intemperate language.)
