At first if you read the assignment you see a dominance in philosophy. Truly it is philosophy with Socrates; though, with Saussure it is more of a science. Then we start seeing the connection of the two as Socrates explains it all to Phaedrus. The more we understand language, the meanings and the significance behind the words the more we can understand and expound upon what we are trying to say. Through philosophy we try to understand the world around us (more for an emotional state) and science we try to understand the world around us.
Wait, isn’t this a digital media class? As explained we must look outside to understand better what is happening in this case in the digital realm. We see this with ourselves as well and more so in the digital world as well. As mentioned in class in the last session we are going through a massive change in how we see the world and how we see things as far as thoughts are conveyed. More and more are we moving from traditional sources and mediums to new forms and we are even experiencing some that don’t even exist yet but are starting to show.
Languages are changing and evolving even our native tongue English isn’t the same as what it used to be and will still grow and evolve after writing this. We must prepare ourselves more so than ever before.
As Paedrus learns that coming in with a small sliver of understanding seems great and seems like a wonder, it is only a place to start. You must learn more and must take in as much as you can; especially the smaller things. Details and those that seem unrelateable become just that the big things and the keys to understanding.
There is a lecture that is given to incoming teaching assistants here at UTD and it is shown that we can pass a test even though the lecture is completely incomprehensible. The lecture given by Dr. Mary L. Urquhart, explains how a mineral is harvested, refined and processed. Structurally if you look the words follow the patterns as pointed out by Saussure, only the words themselves do not have a comprehension to them.
The whole exercise is to show that language is just that a set of words and a set of rules and if you can follow this you can pass. It is exactly what Saussure says, “Language is a well-defined object in the heterogenous mass of speech facts. The key is to be able to expand past that and understand the significant meanings. These meanings allow us to communicate, learn and share. As Socrates shows Paedrus we can also expand more than we ever thought before and create new information from that we have gathered across sources. This is what we do today in the digital age. Who would have thought 15 or even 10 years ago that we could combine the analogue with the digital? We now are creating pieces of artwork that change how we think about how we communicate with each other in significant ways. Inspiration comes from where you least expect it.
We are also filling another challenge here as well, language barriers. I was thinking this before the class started and it just so happened that the first reading I picked up was the one by Saussure. I spent the summer in Peru filming and speaking what broken Spanish I knew. The thought occurred to me of how the languages English and Spanish both grew from the same roots also in a relatively close position from each other and yet things, time and people are represented quite differently. In Spanish there are many more tenses than there are in English to represent something happening now later or in the past. This is very different in English we have a past tense a current and a future or action tense. Even the verbs have different possibilities, we can ask for things in one way in English whereas in Spanish it may mean something completely different. Now because of the spreading of information and the connectivity of the world the languages are becoming much more blended. We see this very close to home with the advent of spanglish a mix of Spanish and English also we see this more with the new terms especially technology.
Between the two readings, Socrates and Saussure, we now know what to expect to be able to keep up with what is said in, “Shift Happens”, in Dr. Urquhart and other scholars lectures about what we see as evolution and revolution of communication. Being prepared as well as being able to draw from many sources to combine is what moves us forward. As Socrates points out to Paedrus it is in knowing of other subjects and being inspired he is able to make such wonderful orations. A language is a language and can be achieved as a formula; but to be able to signify we must be able to also understand and comprehend.
