Author: George Tucker Childs File Type: pdf Providing an introduction to the linguistic study of African languages, the orientation adopted throughout this book is a descriptive-structural-typological one, as opposed to a formal-theoretical approach. Formalisms are not eschewed per se but rather are invoked when they aid the central thrust of the book, which is to describe and characterize the languages of Africa in a succinct and concise manner, and to make the facts accessible to the unfamiliar reader. To say that the approach is typological means that a given structure is compared to structures of the same type (typically ones familiar to the readers), set within an established range of variation, and characterized as usual or unexpected. Further detail is also provided, where possible, in terms of the structures synchronic distribution and diachronic origin. The text assumes at least some knowledge of language structure on the part of its readers, but nothing beyond that acquired in a first-year linguistics course. The book is organized by linguistic domain or sub-field within linguistics, and each of the chapters can be read independently. Readers can thus read selectively or read the book sequentially from cover-to-cover. Instructors can use the book as a text for a course in African languages or even language typology. There is generous indexing by topic, language and author appendix two contains widely used alternative names for the languages discussed and directs readers to listings in the language index.

Author: Paul N. Edwards File Type: mobi The Closed World offers a radically new alternative to thecanonical histories of computers and cognitive science. Arguing that we can make sense of computersas tools only when we simultaneously grasp their roles as metaphors and political icons, PaulEdwards shows how Cold War social and cultural contexts shaped emerging computer technology -- andwere transformed, in turn, by information machines.The ClosedWorld explores three apparently disparate histories -- the history of American globalpower, the history of computing machines, and the history of subjectivity in science and culture --through the lens of the American political imagination. In the process, it reveals intimate linksbetween the military projects of the Cold War, the evolution of digital computers, and the originsof cybernetics, cognitive psychology, and artificial intelligence.Edwards beginsby describing the emergence of a closed-world discourse of global surveillance and control throughhigh-technology military power. The Cold War political goal of containment led to the SAGEcontinental air defense system, Rand Corporation studies of nuclear strategy, and the advancedtechnologies of the Vietnam War. These and other centralized, computerized military command andcontrol projects -- for containing world-scale conflicts -- helped closed-world discourse dominateCold War political decisions. Their apotheosis was the Reagan-era plan for a StarWars space-based ballistic missile defense.Edwards then shows howthese military projects helped computers become axial metaphors in psychological theory. Analyzingthe Macy Conferences on cybernetics, the Harvard Psycho-Acoustic Laboratory, and the early historyof artificial intelligence, he describes the formation of a cyborg discourse. By constructing bothhuman minds and artificial intelligences as information machines, cyborg discourse assisted inintegrating people into the hyper-complex technological systems of the closedworld.Finally, Edwards explores the cyborg as political identity in sciencefiction -- from the disembodied, panoptic AI of 2001 A Space Odyssey, to themechanical robots of Star Wars and the engineered biological androids ofBlade Runner -- where Information Age culture and subjectivity were bothreflected and constructed.Inside Technology seriesAmazon.com ReviewEdwards traces how computers have emerged as the dominant technology as a direct result of Cold War politics and the defense research it engendered. From the first use of room-size mainframes to coordinate missile systems, Pentagon research aimed toward complete computer control, including the budget-busting and ultimately impractical Strategic Defensive Initiative. Edwards relates how the technolog--which is now so open as to be nearly anarchic--began in strictly enclosed secrecy. The military computer goal of perfect command, control and communication systems was understood to mean communication only within a very closed world. Edwards thesis is that this approach influenced the very structure of our modern computers. ReviewA fascinating glimpse into the history of computing and a cogentreminder of the extent to which this history continues to inform ourvision of the future.(Grant Kester The Nation) The Closed World is astonishing. One of the most important books of the 20th century.(Howard Rheingold Whole Earth Review)