Language of Tomorrow

Haytham Nawar

Description

This book gives an overview of the development of the evolution of language through a philosophical lens, and is a culmination of research combining visual communication, semiotic theory, cultural studies, linguistics, artificial intelligence and new media.

It discusses the future of communication – through a pictographic framework – and the possibility of developing a standardized universal pictographic communication system that fosters mutual understanding and bridges diverse cultures.  The research aims to locate the direction that research and development of a universal language for the posthuman era could take through the contextualization and realization of associated practice.

Highly relevant in today's discussion about globalization, language and culture, the combination of the view of design, philosophy, culture and technology makes this book unique. 

Postgraduate students of design, art, philosophy and researchers and academics in the fields. Scholars and students working in linguistics. Cultural studies.  Theory of art and design. Artificial intelligence (AI) and art-tech.

Introduction

Pictographic, logographic, ideographic writing systems and languages

Methods of constructed pictographic communication systems

Linguistic signs in visual communication

Trans-culturalism and posthumanism

Conclusion

Sujets

• Communication Studies
• Writing Systems
• Disciplines
• Language Arts
• Lettres et linguistique
• Philosophy of language
• Pictogram
• Cultural Studies
• Alphabets

Informations

• Publié par: Intellect Books
• Date de parution: 28 octobre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781789381856
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 7 Mo

Extrait

Language of Tomorrow

Language of Tomorrow
Towards a Transcultural Visual Communication System in a Posthuman Condition
Haytham Nawar
First published in the UK in 2020 by Intellect, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK
First published in the USA in 2020 by Intellect, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
Copyright © 2020 Intellect Ltd
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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This is a peer-reviewed publication.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter 1: Pictographic, Logographic, Ideographic Writing Systems and Languages
Chapter 2: Methods of Constructed Pictographic Communication Systems
Chapter 3: Linguistic Signs in Visual Communication
Chapter 4: Transculturalism and Posthumanism
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgements
I would like to offer a heartfelt thank you to my father, Adel Nawar, to whom I am eternally indebted. I am humbled by his unwavering support throughout the years. He is the reason I am who I am today. A big thank you also to my mother, Galila Matouk, for her unconditional love and encouragement during the entire process.
The most important thank yous, those closest to my heart, go to the people who have endured, alongside me, the turbulent and jubilant times of this process. A special thanks to Sophie Kagadis, who provided unwavering help and support.
This endeavour would not have been possible without the guidance, supervision and invaluable mentoring of the great Roy Ascott and the Planetary Collegium, Plymouth University. I would also like to offer my gratitude to Mike Phillips and Jane Grant, as well as to all my colleagues.
In addition, I would like to thank the American University in Cairo for their kind support of the production of this book.
A grand thank you to everyone who has contributed to this process in whatever capacity, whether directly or indirectly.
Introduction
Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646–1716) was a German polymath and philosopher, who among other areas of interest, was concerned with the subject of a universal language. Leibniz scholars agree that the intention behind his Characteristica Universalis (Latin term commonly interpreted as ‘Universal Character’) was to be a form of pasigraphy or ideographic language (Jaenecke 88–102). Characteristica Universalis is a universal and formal language formulated by Leibniz in 1676.
Characteristica Universalis was to be based on a rationalized version of the ‘principles’ of Chinese characters, as they were understood by Europe in the 17th century. Prospectively, it was common to find the Characteristica Universalis associated with universal language projects such as Esperanto , or auxiliary languages such as Interlingua , and other projects such as Gottlob Frege’s (1848–1925) Begriffsschrift . The global expansion of European commerce in Leibniz’s time provided mercantilist motivations for a universal language of trade so that traders could communicate with any natural language. Leibniz aimed at having one alphabet of human thought, a universal symbolic language (characteristic) for natural sciences, mathematics and even metaphysics.
The aim of this research is to locate the direction that research and development of universal language for the posthuman era could take through the contextualization and realization of associated practice.
Many scholars and futurists, such as Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008), Hans Moravec (b. 1948), Raymond Kurzweil (b. 1948) and Francis Fukuyama (b. 1952), agree that our future is headed towards a posthuman future that will be delineated by a renewal of the Renaissance ideals that marry design and precision engineering with intellectual and philosophical virtuosity. The human will come under rejuvenated investigation by multidisciplinary minds that will examine ways to augment it. Through self-appraisal, the ideal of human nature will come under scrutiny by a critically aware society.
In the past two decades the concept of the future posthuman has emerged within philosophy, science fiction, cultural studies and contemporary art. Since it is co-existent with the growth of advanced medical and communication technologies, the posthuman is framed by ideas of mutation, evolution and the development of a species that re-writes what is generally conceived as human. The definition of the posthuman draws on both humanist and anti-humanist concepts that suggest a profound paradox (J. Clarke 1–2).
As human nature evolves, so do the elements that represent and define it. Everything from mosaics to machines, Renaissance philosopher Mirandola (1463–94) to more contemporary philosophers such as Hubert Dreyfus (b. 1929) and John Searle (b. 1932) are ever-changing constituents that have sought to interpret but a fraction of human nature, as it exists.
The history of posthumanism has no obvious beginning, middle or end point in philosophical thought. Indeed, the current stage of theoretical interventions on this topic seems comparable to where postmodernism was located in the early 1990s. Indeed, this analogy extends to the potential divisiveness of the concept within and across disciplines.
That being said, there are several instances across the history of philosophy that deal particularly with appeals to posthuman idea(l)s. In as much as posthumanism is a specific reading of the history of philosophy, it is also an attempt at reforming philosophical views about what it means to be human in the context of emerging technologies.
Essential to the social discourse surrounding many emerging technologies is the idea of the accelerating society (Virilio, Speed and Politics , ‘Speed and Information’). Posthumanism may have the capacity to become a relevant and distinct philosophical paradigm, since scholars and authors from across various disciplines have theorized posthumanism.
We are still in the process of becoming posthuman in the sense that these disconnected perspectives have yet to be written into its historical development, where, for instance, posthumanism is understood as a critique of humanism.
It is argued that ‘the transhuman condition is not about the transcendence of the human being, but concerns its non-teleological becoming in an immanent process of “anthropological deregulation”’ (Pearson, Viroid Life 163). Nevertheless, while it would be tempting to characterize philosophical posthumanism as essentialist and cultural posthumanism as pluralist, this would be too hasty a judgement. Posthumanism may be characterized as a philosophical stance about a ‘perpetual becoming’ given that a set of boundaries and our cultural relationship to them can mark the philosophical project of posthumanism.
Thus, a historical analysis of posthumanity cannot be grounded solely in technological transformation. Rather, it must be more broadly described as part of a set of interconnected discourses and philosophical claims surrounding concepts of mind, body, nature and artifice. It must take into account the historiography of concepts that have emerged and the cultural, political and media instantiations through which moral claims about a shift of humanisms can be asserted.
Posthumanism may be characterized as a philosophical stance towards a ‘perpetual becoming’ given that a set of boundaries and our cultural relationship to them can mark the philosophical project of posthumanism. Posthumanism may also be seen as a cultural stance on the embeddedness of change within social processes.
In light of this, this book is a culmination of research combining visual communication, semiotic theory, cultural studies, linguistics, artificial intelligence and new media, enabling the manipulation of situations allowing a context within which humans and machines could develop a universal means of communication that fosters mutual understanding in a posthuman world.
This is achieved by investigating the linguistic approach through the study of the pictographic, ideographic and logographic writing systems that were part of ancient pictorial scripts, and exploring their adaptations as a means of human communication.
Moving from natural languages to constructed fictional scripts, a selection of fictional writing systems featured in books, films and computer games are explored, serving as a lens to alternative modern-day approaches in which a pictorial means of communication is successfully applied.
Furthermore, the book explores last century’s methods of constructed pictographic communication systems. The book examines communication systems based on a historic timeline that begins with the first emoticons, it then goes on to analyse eastern styles (Japanese, Korean and Chinese) and western styles leading up to their current forms. The book also examines artistic and experimental projects. The science of semiotics is introduced in light of its use in visual communication. Notions of culturalism, transculturalism, multiculturalism and cultural identities are defined, exploring what a trans/multicultural city (place) is, and viewing it as a palimpsest in an introduction to the dystopian posthuman condition.
This approach sets out the foundations for the design of a visual model that constitutes an ope