Digital discourse and its discontents
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Wolfgang Teubert
Abstract
One of the possible explanations for the decline in IQ test results over the last few decades is the effect computerised digitisation has on our communicative behaviour. In what I call the digital discourse mode the content of what is said is not interpreted but dealt with as data, which are processed mechanically, resulting in a Yes/No, Right/Wrong, or Zero/One response. This mode existed long before the invention of the computer; it has been the standard mode of bureaucracy, exemplified, for instance, in the film I, Daniel Blake in the interaction between the protagonist and authority. It requires people to accept rules others have made, and to comply with the exigencies of the system, whether they make sense or not. The digital mode prevents change, fossilising the status quo. In the analogue discourse mode, on the other hand, people carry out controversies by exchanging arguments, thus enabling the emergence of new ideas. The more we engage in this dialogic mode, the more our creative intelligence unfolds. With the introduction of AI, we are increasingly confronted with algorithms which though digital imitate the analogue discourse mode, making us believe we are engaging in unregulated discussions, for instance with bots or so-called personal assistants such as Alexa. But such algorithms control in undisclosed ways not only the information to which we have access but also censure our output, while at the same time commodifying our digital identities. What this new digital discourse mode has in common with the ‘post-bureaucracy’ of today is that people are left in the dark about the true objectives of those whose algorithms define our communicative behaviour and restrict our creativity.
Abstract
One of the possible explanations for the decline in IQ test results over the last few decades is the effect computerised digitisation has on our communicative behaviour. In what I call the digital discourse mode the content of what is said is not interpreted but dealt with as data, which are processed mechanically, resulting in a Yes/No, Right/Wrong, or Zero/One response. This mode existed long before the invention of the computer; it has been the standard mode of bureaucracy, exemplified, for instance, in the film I, Daniel Blake in the interaction between the protagonist and authority. It requires people to accept rules others have made, and to comply with the exigencies of the system, whether they make sense or not. The digital mode prevents change, fossilising the status quo. In the analogue discourse mode, on the other hand, people carry out controversies by exchanging arguments, thus enabling the emergence of new ideas. The more we engage in this dialogic mode, the more our creative intelligence unfolds. With the introduction of AI, we are increasingly confronted with algorithms which though digital imitate the analogue discourse mode, making us believe we are engaging in unregulated discussions, for instance with bots or so-called personal assistants such as Alexa. But such algorithms control in undisclosed ways not only the information to which we have access but also censure our output, while at the same time commodifying our digital identities. What this new digital discourse mode has in common with the ‘post-bureaucracy’ of today is that people are left in the dark about the true objectives of those whose algorithms define our communicative behaviour and restrict our creativity.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- Introduction 1
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I Meaning in time and space
- Digital discourse and its discontents 9
- Text, intertext and meaning 37
- Hic sunt dracones 65
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II Variation in time
- Presenting knowledge of the world 89
- Interpreting the world of late modern English medical writing 113
- A corpus-based analysis of grammarians’ references in 19th-century British grammars 133
- Construing justice 173
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III Variation in space
- Variation in the complementiser choice between if and whether 203
- Using intensifier-adjective collocations to investigate mechanisms of change 231
- There’s different types 257
- Academic prose across countries 283
- A corpus-based study of metadiscoursal boosters in applied linguistics dissertations written in Thailand and in the United States 321
- Patterns and meanings of hedging verbs in English-medium research articles by Chinese and Western scholars 351
- The EMI campus as site and source for a multimodal corpus 377
- Index 403
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- Introduction 1
-
I Meaning in time and space
- Digital discourse and its discontents 9
- Text, intertext and meaning 37
- Hic sunt dracones 65
-
II Variation in time
- Presenting knowledge of the world 89
- Interpreting the world of late modern English medical writing 113
- A corpus-based analysis of grammarians’ references in 19th-century British grammars 133
- Construing justice 173
-
III Variation in space
- Variation in the complementiser choice between if and whether 203
- Using intensifier-adjective collocations to investigate mechanisms of change 231
- There’s different types 257
- Academic prose across countries 283
- A corpus-based study of metadiscoursal boosters in applied linguistics dissertations written in Thailand and in the United States 321
- Patterns and meanings of hedging verbs in English-medium research articles by Chinese and Western scholars 351
- The EMI campus as site and source for a multimodal corpus 377
- Index 403
