讲座题目：The human-machine interface and the 4th dimension in human language
主讲人：Dr Michael Walsh（University of Sydney）
时 间：４月６日（周三）15:00-17:00
地 点：上外虹口校区图书馆6楼报告厅
主办单位：上外语言研究院、中国外语战略研究中心
主讲人简介：
Dr Michael Walsh is an accomplished linguist of Aboriginal languages. Since 1972 he has carried out fieldwork in the Top End of the Northern Territory, mainly in the Darwin-Daly region. This has been a mixture of academic endeavours and - since 1979 - consultancies mainly relating to Aboriginal land issues. Since 1999 he has been involved in the revitalization of Aboriginal languages in New South Wales. In 1982-2005 he was part of the teaching staff of the Department of Linguistics, University of Sydney. Since then, as an Honorary Associate, he has continued his research interests, especially through a large ARC grant involving a team of linguists and musicologists running from 2004 to 2009. Walsh maintains a very extensive knowledge of Indigenous language intervention programs across Australia (e.g. Walsh 2005, 2007, 2009; Zuckermann and Walsh 2011), as well as other parts of the world (e.g. Walsh 2005).
内容简介：
We are living in the midst of a revolution but many people hardly pause to think about it. The Internet is only 20 years old but has come to dominate most of our lives. How far into the future before your computer becomes your best friend? It really ‘knows’ you - up, down and sideways – partly because it has monitored every keystroke you’ve ever used, every website you’ve ever looked at and for how long and how many repeats. It also knows about all your phone calls and conversations because ‘it’ is constantly in earshot because of the rise of ubiquitous computing. It knows your moods and how to react to them – including things like cheering you up with jokes that it knows will appeal to you. It remembers to send a card to your partner/mother/whoever at strategic moments. Etc etc. As I type this I ask about 'human-machine interface' and am directed to a bit under 2 million sites in a 5th of a second. Thanks, mate.
An important part of this interface involves human language and so Linguistics should be taking a strong interest!? But the computer can also be a vehicle of communication between people, often referred to as Computer Mediated Communication although the linguist, David Crystal (2004, 2006), prefers the term: Netspeak. The two dimensions of language use with which most of us are most familiar are speaking and writing. Another is signing which has a more limited distribution. A really new form of language - a 4th dimension of language use - only emerges occasionally: speech – hmm – quite a while ago; writing – 10,000 years ago or pick another date that you prefer; and, now, Netspeak – only just arrived and evolving rapidly. The reason Crystal sets this ‘4th dimension’ apart is because Netspeak is in some ways not like speech and in some ways not like writing. It is not like speech for at least 3 reasons: lack of simultaneous feedback; multiple simultaneous input (e.g. chatrooms); time-delay in response(s). And it is not like writing for at least 3 reasons: the dynamism of webpages; framing; hypertext linking.
In this talk I want to explore some of the effects that these revolutions are having on our lives - not only for the community as a whole but also what implications they might have for Australian Aboriginal communities and their languages, as elsewhere (e.g. Walsh 1997) I have claimed that Indigenous communities may have different uses of new media because of a different interactional style in language.
参考书目：
Crystal, David 2004 The Language Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Crystal, David 2006 Language and the Internet. 2nd edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Walsh, Michael 1997 Cross Cultural Communication Problems in Aboriginal Australia. Darwin: North Australia Research Unit. Discussion Paper No.7/1997.
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