Readings:

Richard Kern, Language, Literacy, and Technology (2019 paperback edition) ISBN-13: 978-1107642850

Barton, D., & Lee, C. (2013). Language Online: Investigating Digital Texts and Practices. New York: Routledge. ISBN-13: 978-0415524940

Course Description:

This seminar will explore language as an adaptive cultural practice, focusing on how language forms and use interact with various technological mediations. We will focus on what is currently happening with digitally-mediated language use, but will do so within an historical perspective, starting with the origins of writing.  We will organize our exploration around three themes:

1) Language and technological change: How have the constraints and resources of various media over the history of writing (e.g., clay, stone, papyrus, print, electronic displays) interacted with language forms and language use?

2) Reading, writing, and technological change: How have material technologies of writing and social practices of literacy co-evolved historically? How does the emergence of new discourse practices and new genres in digitally-mediated communication affect our print-era definitions of reading and writing?

3) Education in an electronic age: In the context of digital media, what new interpretation/authoring practices develop, and how do people learn them? How are people socialized into electronic literacy practices and communities? What are the implications for the way knowledge is acquired, shared, and assessed?

Section times and locations in the Schedule of Classes