Blogs vs. Revolution of Language and Situated Cognition
I believe blogs are part of a revolution of language that came along with the invention of cyberspace, which has an inevitable effect on, also, our situated cognition. In my first original post, I would like to point out some of the facts that explain this revolution.First of all, the word “blog” is derived from “weblog.” Along with it come new concepts such as blogging (activity of updating a blog) and blogger (someone who keeps a blog). Even the acquisition of these new concepts is changing language and the way it is used in everyday lives. Some may say they contribute to the way language is used, some may say they corrupt it. Yet, probably all agree that they are the signs of a major change.
How this change occurs in our everyday lives can be understood better by referring to the definition of language and relating it to how blogs work. A web definition belonging to the online dictionary of Princeton University defines language as: “a systematic means of communicating by the use of sounds or conventional symbols.” That may be the definition of language we use everyday in real life, but in cyberspace, especially through the means blogs provided us with, we do more than that to communicate, which contributes to the use of language. The most accurate examples to these means can be the features of commentary, links, and images. Commentaries carry the communicative characteristic of language to cyberspace by making blogs a conversational medium, and links and images help the way we convey our ideas.
This is linked to the concept of situated cognition, too, since it also affects the way communication is reflected in our cognition. That is, we can say, in real life, we have some conventional ways of communication. For instance, we can ask questions to try to understand the speaker more. In blogs, we have other things to do to get the main idea: we can look at the images, click on the links to other sites or to other posts, use trackback facilities to learn about what the initial point to start all the talk was, basically, get a bigger picture. Thus, the nature of communication changes, which also changes our situated cognition.
One can understand how blogs change use of language and affect our situated cognition more by knowing about the features that define a blog. A blog is a publically accessible online diary/journal that consists of many posts- usually time-stamped, in chronologically reverse order- with commentary and links. So, first, in terms of the nature of the genre referred to, “diaries,” blogs revolutionize language. “Diaries” are expected to be private. With blogs, they become public, which also means the way we perceive the concept of privacy change, which is a phenomenon that also, I believe, relates to “situated cognition”. In terms of the material conditionality, this takes place like this: Diaries, which have our very own hand-writing in real pages, become cyber-text linked together with links and images. And diaries that are either locked or kept in a rather inaccessible place, come online and become accessible by everyone. This fact also makes a blog a perfect part of cyberspace within which the concept of privacy has already been acquiring a new meaning, since the time the Internet came about. That new meaning have our perceptions mutated, which also changed our situated cognition of a diary.
Overall, the change starts within the discourse that makes a diary a diary and a blog a blog. My post is just an attempt to show some aspects of it. The issue is very much open to further elaboration.
To learn more about blogs and develop ideas about the possible ways they revolutionize language, you may check:
Blood, Rebecca. "Weblogs: A History and Perspective", Rebecca's Pocket. September 07, 2000. September 26, 2004.
Wrede, Oliver. “Weblogs and Discourse: Weblogs as a transformational technology for higher education and academic research.” Blogtalk Conference Paper, Vienna, May 23-24
posted by Elif Guler @ 2:01 AM
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