some questions

From: Elisa Sayeg (cyborg@uol.com.br)
Date: Fri Jan 28 2000 - 03:42:16 PST


  Hello,
 
  I'm sending some questions, a bit out of context. I may elaborate further, but I thought I might begin by these questions. Maybe there is someone here who can help me. I've began researching cognition in a different tradition, so I'm still trying to adjust to new concepts from cultural psychology, and I apologize if these questions sound naive.
 
   1) I've read some authors who say that "writing" is a technology. Can we say that, because of that, language is an artifact?
 
   2) Or maybe language is in part an artifact? Even if some part of language is biological, some part of language is part of culture.
 
  4) If writing was an invention, it is obvious that literary genres are inventions too. But not only literary genres, since oral discourse can assume many formats that are analogous to literary genres. Can we say that speech genres are artifacts ?
 
  5) If this is correct, is it useful to consider speech genres as artifacts? What we gain (in explanation power) by making this approximation?

I'd appreciate any comments on these questions. Are they nonsense? Is there a better direction in which to explore these problems?
 

Elisa

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