Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Language was developed as a necessity, to fill a void, a need, at its most basic as a primal function language allows for communication etc.  From language story was developed.  First, story was told verbally, than written down, than there were television and movies, and even videogames now tell stories.  As a new medium is developed not long after a method of telling story through the particular medium will develop. 
One such new medium is Twitter.  I'm all but certain that you already know, Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables users to send and read "tweets", which are text messages limited to 140 characters. Registered users can read and post tweets but unregistered users can only read them.  One would imagine that with the limiting factor of only 140 characters would restrict creativity and particularly the ability to tell story through the medium.  In fact, Twitter seems not just more suited for things such as breaking news and personal expression, but only suited for things such as breaking news and personal expression.  However, this is not the case.  Much to my surprise there is such a thing as Twitter fiction which includes but is not necessarily limited to fiction which fit within a 140 character space.
Here is an example of such 140 character fiction:
She asked, “Will she be OK?” He said, “Her brain tumor was the size of a fist. What do you think?” Silence burdened the descending elevator.
Other Twitter fiction authors have told their story using not just one 140 character tweet, but instead multiple 140 character tweets drastically changing the dynamic of the story.  Elliot Holt is one such author.  She told a story of the death of a woman through multiple tweets and multiple characters in the story.  Here's the story.
Story evolves to fit every medium, so what's next for story?
For more information on Twitter fiction and Twitter's evolution etc. check out the video below.

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Please humor me if you will and just take a moment to think.  Think about anything your dog, your cat, school, dinner anything just think.  Now, I would be willing to bet that during this brief moment of thought, that you thought with language, with words.  Consider now the idea of thought without words.  Think again but this time try to think without the use of words.  Could you do it?   It's a loaded question it would be nearly impossible to think about a question displayed with words, by simply thinking the question you would have in turn thought words.  As a human beings language is so deeply ingrained in our being that thought without language is seemingly impossible.
However, we do know that while thought without language is impossible for most human beings it is not impossible for infants, deaf with no comprehension of language, and animals.  For instance, your dog doesn't talk yet when it observes cars passing by from the yard behind the fence feeling that insatiable need to chase after them, the dog is without a dog thinking, but it's thinking without words.
Once we are introduced to language it seems impossible to think and or form concepts without it although without language one would be just as well off but would not use language to form thought and concepts but would still be able to.  So, this poses the question as to whether language dictates thought or thought dictates language?  This is where the question gets fuzzy and there is a definite gray area because we don't actually fully understand this idea thus we can't really explain it.  Without digging to far into the works of Benjamin Lee Whorf, Edward Sapir and other in the field of linguistic relativity, we just don't know the answer and we continue to argue the question.
Moreover, thought would still occur without the implantation of language into ones life, but does language enrich thought and concept?  Language, allows us communication, story, books, concept, etc.  Language makes life easier.  Does it make thought better?