But Which?
i've just finished reading (literally put down the book, opened the laptop) the word exchange by alena graedon. yes, good, excellent, very. although i found that there is something indefinably lacking in the narrative-not the story itself, but the way in which it is told?-still i gulped it over two days. it's the first book in a long time that i stayed up late reading and found it difficult to put down to go to sleep.
the idea of word viruses/viral words isn't new but this is a really interesting take on the intersection of language and technology. and disturbing in its very plausibility.
and, just, words, man, language. beautiful and deadly. vital and dangerous. vulnerable and unbreakable. Words are alluvial, like rock formations. Phonemes are arbitrary. Meanings aren't: they accrue from shared experience.
and Words are living legends, swollen with significance. We string them together to make stories, but they themselves are stories, encapsulating rich, runny histories.
also there are false/close/metaphoric/nearly there definitions-one for each letter of the alphabet. i think this is my favourite: lo·gom·a·chy n 1 : when words turn into weapons 2 : the beginning of the end
and aphasia. how many novels deal with aphasia? the disorienting experience of not being understood because your own words are wrong. that shrinking, bewildered feeling when you encounter the blank or puzzled look and realise your brain has betrayed you without your awareness. the language centre in your brain corrupted.
interesting to me:
* deaf people were mostly unaffected. but the virus was spread through both speech and text. was it just because that population made less use of memes or does it have something to do with the way in which sign language is processed? but how does that account for reading?
* there's no mention of attempting to use either sign language or music in language therapy. music is processed in a different area of the brain than language and there's been evidence that some people with damage to their language centres can learn to speak again through singing.
* narrative as both protection and treatment. reading narratives (ana) and constructing them (bart's journal) ameliorate symptoms. it's not just the vocabulary, it must also be the structured nature and the way in which the brain has to process and make connections and reason. also the use of memory.
* what is it about being multilingual that offers protection?
* what if bart never fully recovers? if there is a small subset of people who recover from the virus but never fully regain their language expression skills? presumably he still retains the ability to understand language. this suggest new communicative technologies will have to be developed.
* the fact that the virus continues to spread. it has become embedded in language itself? not just a language, but the very concept of language. it's jumped species in effect. because we create/d language but we never fully control it. no matter how much we'd like to think so, language has never been domesticated. that is why it's so fucking cool.
a word after a word after a word is power
margaret atwood
--
This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth. If you feel inclined, comment there.
the idea of word viruses/viral words isn't new but this is a really interesting take on the intersection of language and technology. and disturbing in its very plausibility.
and, just, words, man, language. beautiful and deadly. vital and dangerous. vulnerable and unbreakable. Words are alluvial, like rock formations. Phonemes are arbitrary. Meanings aren't: they accrue from shared experience.
and Words are living legends, swollen with significance. We string them together to make stories, but they themselves are stories, encapsulating rich, runny histories.
also there are false/close/metaphoric/nearly there definitions-one for each letter of the alphabet. i think this is my favourite: lo·gom·a·chy n 1 : when words turn into weapons 2 : the beginning of the end
and aphasia. how many novels deal with aphasia? the disorienting experience of not being understood because your own words are wrong. that shrinking, bewildered feeling when you encounter the blank or puzzled look and realise your brain has betrayed you without your awareness. the language centre in your brain corrupted.
interesting to me:
* deaf people were mostly unaffected. but the virus was spread through both speech and text. was it just because that population made less use of memes or does it have something to do with the way in which sign language is processed? but how does that account for reading?
* there's no mention of attempting to use either sign language or music in language therapy. music is processed in a different area of the brain than language and there's been evidence that some people with damage to their language centres can learn to speak again through singing.
* narrative as both protection and treatment. reading narratives (ana) and constructing them (bart's journal) ameliorate symptoms. it's not just the vocabulary, it must also be the structured nature and the way in which the brain has to process and make connections and reason. also the use of memory.
* what is it about being multilingual that offers protection?
* what if bart never fully recovers? if there is a small subset of people who recover from the virus but never fully regain their language expression skills? presumably he still retains the ability to understand language. this suggest new communicative technologies will have to be developed.
* the fact that the virus continues to spread. it has become embedded in language itself? not just a language, but the very concept of language. it's jumped species in effect. because we create/d language but we never fully control it. no matter how much we'd like to think so, language has never been domesticated. that is why it's so fucking cool.
a word after a word after a word is power
margaret atwood
--
This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth. If you feel inclined, comment there.