Ong discusses in these two readings, the differences in speaking and writing. There are over a thousand languages, but only 106 of them are used as writing or used in literature. Cultures that have both written and spoken "languages", seem to be more advanced than those with just an oral language.
While reading Ong's first chapter of "Orality and Literacy", I came across a small section where Ong talked about "computer language". This immediately caught my attention. With some prior programming experience, I found it interesting that Ong believes that this language is "totally unlike human languages, in that they do not grow out of unconscious but directly out of consciousness." I believe that "computer language" is a remediated form of writing, where we are using precise terms to accomplish a task. Grammar is not usually associated with computer language, while it is very important when writing or speaking.
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Think about how computer languages (all of them) absolutely 100% have a grammar (syntax) that must be adhered to in order for a program to be successfully compiled or run, yet we can all understand each other's writing or speech even if our grammar is minimally good. So how might that work in terms of remediation?
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about computer language being a remediated form of writing. Except I think there is a different kind of grammar associated with computer language. I have some background with website coding, and if there is a space, or a capitalized letter somewhere in the code it will completely mess everything up. So there is definitely a form of grammar that adheres to computer language.
ReplyDeleteI agree with JMB. For computer languages you must adhere to the specified syntax of the language you are using, but I find it hard to imagine that computer languages are remediated forms of writing. I don't see the new medium I guess.
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