Networx Nr. 40

Gutenberg und das Internet. Der Einfluss von Informationsmedien auf Sprache und Sprachwissenschaft

Autor(in)

Jucker, Andreas H.

Jahr

2004

Ort

Zürich

Sprache

deutsch

Abstract

Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press in the fifteenth century had a lasting impact on the development of language. In the case of English it increased the then existing standardization tendencies, it led to more widespread alphabetiza-tion and indirectly to a replacement of Latin as the language of science and learn-ing. But above all the printing press led to a new fixity of texts and thus to our modern understanding of texts as finished products whose authorship can be pro-tected by copyright laws. Against this background this article assesses some im-minent changes brought about by the digitalization of texts. In addition to their modular and multilinear structure electronic texts are characterized by a loss of fixity. These features pose considerable challenges to linguistics. New tools will have to be developed in order to cope with the modularity, multilinearity and flu-idity of digital texts.

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