Language and Technology

In this day and age, it's increasingly difficult to escape technology; it pervades almost every facet of our lives. We use technology:

• to communicate with people, whether they're geographically near or far from us

• to organise our schedules and budgets

• for banking and paying bills

• to warm and cool our homes and execute other daily functions (programmable coffee machine, anyone?)

• for creating and distributing media

• for making and showcasing art.

The list goes on and on. Most ways we use technology in day to day life require or facilitate language, and therefore, the two are very closely linked. For example, chatting to a friend on social media requires you to use language and, at the same time, facilitates ease of communication over distance. Regulating the temperature in your house requires you to input values into the thermostat - this is also an example of using language to complete a technological task.

Fig. 1 - Nowadays, our lives are almost inextricably linked with technology.

On that note, let's take a closer look at the link between language and technology.

The Relationship between Language and Technology

As we've mentioned briefly above, language and technology are inherently intertwined. All technological feats would have required vast amounts of language to bring into existence. This could be through researchers, scientists, and engineers communicating with one another to bring an idea to life or through users communicating directly with the technology itself to prompt it to execute its function.

Wherever you find technology, you'll also find language. The relationship between language and technology is therefore unbreakable.

The role of language in technology

Not only does technology rely on the presence of language to exist, but technology is also controlled, instructed, and modified by language. You could say that language has one of the most important roles in ensuring technological success.

So what exactly IS the role of language in technology?

In most cases, language is required to make a piece of technology or technological programme work. This begins from the roots when the coders and programmers first create the code that tells computers and other machines what they're supposed to do. We also speak about this code in linguistic terms, such as 'coding language' or 'programming language'.

Fig. 2 - Technology uses its own language, called code, to function.

Once the technology is successfully up and running, the users will often use language to get the technology to perform its intended function. This could come in the form of typing sentences into a social media platform to send a message to someone or inputting someone's personal and bank details to pay them online.

Language and Technology Theorists

As with any sub-topic in English, many theorists have focused their work on language and technology. Here are a few of the ones you should know about.

Caroline Tagg

According to Tagg, identity is not a concrete, unchanging phenomenon, and people are constantly altering their identity based on the people and factors around them. People can present themselves in different ways to communicate their updated sense of identity, and technology has made this much easier and faster. Essentially, creating an online version of yourself that you can present to the whole world is much more efficient than distributing your new sense of self to every person you know individually.

Fig. 3 - Thanks to social media, we are able to present our identities to a much wider audience.

Naomi Baron

Naomi Baron talks a lot about the convenience of communication technology and how this has impacted communication and people's attitudes towards it. In her book Always On: Language in an Online and Mobile World (2008), Baron discusses the domestication of technology and how the exponential development of communication technology has altered our behaviour and attitudes.

For example, she notes that it is much easier to Google the weather forecast nowadays than to tune in to the weather channel on TV or the radio. The convenience of having an internet-powered search engine quite literally at our fingertips has diminished our need to communicate information with other people more directly. Baron also states that communication technology has allowed us to remain in contact with people who are far away without the costs and time associated with travelling to different destinations.

As a result of this new convenient and inexpensive era of technological communication, more and more people are 'always on', as Baron puts it. This refers to the fact that most people in the developed world are now largely reliant on technology every day.

Gretchen McCulloch

In her book Because Internet: Understanding How Language is Changing (2019), McCulloch explores how the surge in online social media platforms has impacted language use and communication over the last decade and a half. She states that before the internet, people were exposed primarily to a written language that used standard linguistic forms, whereas the internet has allowed anyone to become a writer. She says:

As we use technology more and more to facilitate communication, our language use changes to reflect this. For example, social media has allowed us to become more informal with our linguistic choices. The rise of abbreviations, acronyms, and emojis has further cleared the way for more colloquial written communication.

McCulloch also talks about how people, most commonly the older generations, often reminisce about the 'good old days', when people had proper, face-to-face conversations instead of sending each other silly, informal messages. Younger generations, however, tend to celebrate the introduction of new technological features that supplement online communication. Regardless of the mode, communication comes down to one key thing: attempting to ensure all our needs and desires are met. These needs could be:

• physiological - a child asking a parent for food because they are hungry.

• emotional - sharing your feelings or opinions with someone, seeking validation, acknowledgement, or support.

• safety - warning others of danger or risk.

• social - building relationships and making memories with people you care about.

Human Language Technology Applications

Human language technology applications... Wow, that's quite a mouthful! What does it mean?

How can HLT applications help people to communicate?

There are many reasons why a person might require additional support with verbal or written communication. Here is a selection of examples:

• Hearing-impaired people use devices such as hearing aids to improve their hearing and can also use speech-to-text programmes to turn someone's spoken language into readable text.

• People with disabilities that impede their speaking ability can utilise computer-based communication systems to give them more communication independence. A good example of this kind of technology is Stephen Hawking's computer system that allowed him to speak using a voice synthesiser.

• Anyone wanting to communicate in a language they do not understand or speak can use translation apps to help their understanding. Google Translate is a popular machine-assisted translation application that allows us to translate text to and from any language.

Language and the Power of Mass Media

This far down in this article, you're probably forming a good idea of how language and technology impact one another. To further this exploration, here are a couple of examples of how mass media can inspire global collaboration and societal change:

Impact of Technology on the English Language

There are many unusual and wonderful ways technology has impacted our language use. Some people might argue that technology has ruined our ability to be in the moment and have real, deep conversations. In contrast, others would say that technology has enriched our language and given us more communication freedom.

Fig. 4 - Technology has led to extensive language change including the introduction of emojis.

Whatever camp you find yourself in, some language changes cannot go unnoticed:

• Abbreviations and acronyms have become much more commonplace in both written and verbal communication. It is mainly younger generations that use these devices in spoken discourse - acronyms such as JK (just kidding) and IDK (I don't know) are often used in speech as well as text.

• New terminology has erupted into our vocabularies based on new technological functions added to social media (for example, to 'unfriend' someone).

• Many English words have been appropriated to mean something completely different online (the word 'troll' can now mean to make fun of someone on the internet in an attention-seeking manner).

• Technology has generally made our communication style and language choices more casual and colloquial, whether that's in written or verbal modes.

• Technology has also changed the way we communicate with writing. For instance, WRITING SOMETHING IN ALL CAPS can be interpreted as shouting, whereas lowercase letters represent a normal speaking volume and tone.

• Technology has led to a rise in multimodality across communication: communicating via different technological applications has given us the ability to combine several modes of communication, including linguistic (e.g. text), visual (e.g. images and colours), gestural (e.g. YouTube videos), and aural (e.g. music and sounds).

Technology and other Language Topics

As technology continues to develop and spread across our lives, it's only natural that we would start finding links between technology and other facets of linguistics. Just as people of different demographics use spoken and written language in various ways without technological intervention, the same is true for communication aided by technology.

In this last section, we'll look at some of these social factors and how technology has impacted language use within them.

Technology, language, and gender

Just as language use differs across the genders during spoken discourse, it changes when technology is added to the equation. Technology can be a powerful tool in building and sharing one's identity, and gender is a significant factor. Therefore, different genders will inherently make different linguistic choices over social media and other technological applications to consolidate their identity and present it to their peers.

Technology, language, and power

In your English language studies, you might have explored the relationship between language and power. In essence, language can be utilised in many different ways and in many different environments to gain, assert, or maintain power. The same is true for language exchanged over social media or other applications.

Power is often linked to technology in how technology allows people to reach different parts of the world without having to travel great distances.

Big international companies and organisations are not the only ones who are able to leverage technology in order to gain or expand power. Every day, people can utilise technology to achieve significant results too, and therefore, technology gives 'the people' power as well.

Technology, language, and age

Linking into the point above, age is a significant factor in language use and this can be seen across technologically-aided communication as well. Younger people tend to use more abbreviations, idiomatic language, and other more recent linguistic features than older people. This is because younger people have known social media and other technological programmes their whole lives whereas older generations have been introduced to them later in life, and have had less time (and perhaps inclination!) to adapt their language.

Older generations are also less likely to understand social media terms such as 'troll', 'meme', 'catfish', and 'emoji' than younger generations, again due to having had less exposure to the technology.