Language and Technology. Two things that have very little in common at first glance. But as we learned throughout the day, they are more related than one might think.
The day started off with book presentations about knowledge. After that we threw ourselves into some much-needed training for the ToK exhibition which consisted of getting familiar with prompts and choosing adequate objects which might work with a Kahoot game. Then the extraordinary part of the day started. Kevin Bätscher, a linguist who has graduated from the LG in 2008 came and gave a presentation on his work as a linguist. He explained to us what linguistics is (which is the scientific study of Language) and gave us a brief introduction to the many fields in his work. Out of Sociolinguistics, Historical Linguistics, Theoretical Linguistics, Typology, Language Documentation, Language Acquisition and Psycho + Neurolinguistics Mr. Bätscher explained to us in greater detail ‘his’ fields Typology and Language Documentation. ‘Typology in a nutshell’s basically what’s where and why’ which for us amateurs he explained as the study of language patters and their distribution. Typology is according to Mr. Bätscher theoretical and dry. Language Documentation however is far more interesting. Devoting himself to this field Mr. Bätscher has traveled to nearly every continent trying to document endangered languages such as Eyak from Alaska, Halkomelem from Canada, or Mlabri from Thailand. All of those languages are spoken by small communities and have never been put into writing or any other sort of documentation. Mr. Bätscher tries to uncover grammatical rules, the importance of pronunciation and how to teach it to next generations. After a very interesting but tiring morning and a much-needed lunch break, Mrs. Debrunner started the afternoon with a power point presentation introducing us to the Herculaneum scrolls. These scrolls were found in the Pompeii villa, which belonged to the father-in-law of Julius Cesar. In his library art, books, book rolls and the Herculaneum scrolls were found. It was the largest art collection in the antique. Because the Lahar from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius carbonized the scrolls, they remained surprisingly well preserved even though they have been buried for a long time. To read them, the scrolls either need to be broken apart or they have to be scanned and unrolled virtually, which is, a very difficult and complicated task. With this interesting introduction, it was finally up to us do something ourselves. We were given the task to write an exhibition on the topic Language and Technology choosing our own prompt and the second object since for the first we had to use the Herculaneum scrolls. ‘Now you are ready to rock and roll’ as Mrs. Debrunner declares and we vigorously began writing our exhibitions.
Maya Piwonska
