Language and IT: Rivals or Partners?
Frank Knowles · Literary and Linguistic Computing · 1990
This paper—which aggregates, agglomerates, and amplifies previous statements expressed by its author—presents a partly historical but mostly thematic survey of the sometimes collaborative, sometimes confrontative interaction of language with information technology. The linguistic foci commented on range from the learning of foreign languages, through computational linguistics (including machine translation) and automated dictionaries, to the concept and practicalities of a computerized environment and its associated software desiderata for the purposes of document generation. Contrasts are drawn between the ‘symbol-processing’ approach and the Al paradigm, neither able to cope satisfactorily with the vagaries of natural, rather than artificial, language. Discussion of ‘mind and productivity tools’ for writers is directed at underlining certain logistic and ergonomic benefits IT can offer to human beings who, in their turn, need not—yet, or indeed ever—surrender their intellectual autonomy to the hardware and software they make use of for laudable professional purposes. The hope is that man and machine can come to be clearly recognized as well-suited partners rather than sparring competitors or-better-rivals in the language arena.