Warren’s responses to Dr. Boroditsky’s talk stood out to me. he makes an interesting set of points between the first two quotes he responded to – teasing apart language and culture while indicating that language may not shape thinking as much as culture does.

I think that this is fascinating – to me what Warren appears to be engaging with, especially in his writing around Seppuku, resonates more with the idea of “values” rather than what I was considering as “ways of thinking”. But how are those things different?

I think I had been approaching this task from almost a neural pathway level – do we develop different pathways in our brain based on the languages we speak? Cursory searches seem to indicate that there’s a level of ‘rewiring’ that takes place when you learn a new language (Wei et al., 2024). I wonder if similar changes would occur if you moved to a culturally distinct place that shared the same language that you already speak, or if language itself alters the brain in a distinct way from other immersive experiences of culture. Warren’s response really took me aback – it was a direction I hadn’t considered when I was listening to Dr. Boroditsky’s talk and I appreciate that eye-opening!

I found April’s response beautiful, visually. I also appreciated her reflection coming from her perspective as a grade 1 teacher who is observing students learning how to communicate their feelings. For some reason that twigged me to my experiences in therapy – not just communicating my feelings but also how much labor goes into breaking up patterns of thought that seem to have sprung from nowhere.

This connected me back to Warren’s response – do I think the process of learning to think about, label, and sort through my own feelings is something that would be impacted by language? I think it’s evident that our relationships to our emotions are impacted through culture, but would having multiple words for love make it easier to sort through on an individual level? I’m often grasping at straws when it comes to describing feelings of anxiety, diving into simile and metaphor to articulate to others what is happening. But what about communicating with myself? One strategy that I’ve personally found effective is kind of similar to ‘noting’ in meditation. When I find myself overwhelmed and anxious, having the time, space, and ability to put a label on it can help. How is that act of labelling connected to language, culture, and my own emotional regulation?

This response got a little off the rails but I found it interesting how those two responses connected together and provoked something for me. Thank you Warren and April!

References

Huang, A. (June 1, 2024). Task 2: Does language shape the way we think? ETEC 540. https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540ah/2024/06/01/task-2-how-languages-shape-the-way-we-think/

Wei, X., Gunter, T. C., Adamson, H., Schwendemann, M., Friederici, A. D., Goucha, T., & Anwander, A. (2024). White matter plasticity during second language learning within and across hemispheres. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences – PNAS, 121(2), e2306286121-e2306286121. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2306286121

Wong, W. (May 27, 2024). Task 2: Does language shape the way we think? ETEC 540. https://blogs.ubc.ca/warrenwong/2024/05/27/task-2-does-language-shape-the-way-we-think/

I’ve realized that I haven’t spent as much time engaging with the “What’s in my bag” task that I wanted to. Two things jumped out at me from Steph’s post.

1. The immense amount of “stuff” (her words!) in her bag – this speaks to me!
2. The way Steph bolded phrases and words in her response

I think these two factors kind of work together beautifully in her response. She writes on the wide variety of items in her bag and the act of searching for the relevant item she needs at this time, buying accessories in bright colors to . At the same time, in her post, she writes beautifully and at length while highlighting relevant keywords. This kind of facilitates a similar experience for the reader – sorting and sifting and finding what you’re looking for in the text.

I think the use of bolding also represents a facet of changing text technologies! It would be more challenging to facilitate a reading experience like this without using word processing software. I appreciate her reflection on text technologies and how she maintains an affection for pen-and-paper which leans towards the realm of the personal, while integrating affordances of word processing so effectively in her post.

References

Takeda, S. (May, 2024). Task 1: What’s in your bag? ETEC 540 Webspace. https://blogs.ubc.ca/stephtakeda/2024/05/26/task-1/

Joti’s Post

I’ve already written about Task 7, but wanted to focus in on Joti’s response specifically. Joti focused on integrating the theoretical into her response, and she developed an interesting Genially that took advantage of blending the visual, audio, and linguistic modes.

I wonder how it could be expanded to include the spatial, and gestural modes. I wonder if something as simple as Genially allowing swiping on a mobile device could be considered in the frame of the spatial and the gestural. Using a mobile device compared to a laptop or desktop computer does impact how you interact with and consume content. Recently I’ve been working on a complex self assessment tool on Qualtrics and have spent many an afternoon swiping through the form on a mobile device testing out the different layouts to see what is the easiest and most straightforward way for users to get to the end of the form. As I work on this I’ve also been reflecting on the attention economy task – funnily enough it’s an ethics self-assessment tool so issues of ethical design and effective use have been bubbling to the surface.

How else could you incorporate the spatial and gestural in the mode-bending task I wonder? Spatial audio like you’d see in 360 degree videos could be one way to consider the spatial still in a web platform…. part of me thinks we’ve been trying to instill depth into the screen since we started projecting images.

References

Singh, J. (June 24, 2024). Mode-bending. Joti Singh’s Weebly. https://jotisingh.weebly.com/tasks/mode-bending

I resonated with Duncan’s post – as another tech-adjacent worker I also don’t often handwrite and so found Task 4 physically challenging to an extent, and I have a shameful collection of notebooks with only the first few pages used. Without fail they seem to become a home for lists that ultimately peter out as I repeatedly forget the notebook when I venture out to accomplish the entries.

Duncan’s approach reminded me of Jeffrey Brown’s debut book Clumsy (2002). This has been a favorite book of mine for many years and has informed many of my ideas around art creation in terms of economy of line and clarity of feeling. Brown’s (2002) book was inked without pencils – there are visible errors and changes throughout the book. Duncan’s lower case “r” really reminded me of Brown’s work.

Lucy’s approach to this task was different – while she didn’t wind up making potato stamps I enjoyed reading her approach to handwriting and journaling. I think it comes through that it’s more integrated in her daily life when compared to Duncan and I. The way she includes the time with her date reminds me of letters from my aunt – she always includes time, date, and weather information which always situates her letters in a sense of place.

Task 4 was a task that I was able to integrate into my life easily – we made potato stamps during one of our Art Nights (I write this post during another Art Night). I think the connection to the personal comes through both Lucy and Duncan’s handwriting, and it’s something that I try to nurture in my writing whether it is mediated by the keyboard or not.

References

Brown, J. (2002). Clumsy: A novel. Top Shelf Publishers.

Hamilton, D. (June 9, 2024). Task 4 – Writing and potato stamps. Duncan’s ETEC540 Space. https://blogs.ubc.ca/duncman/2024/06/09/task-4-writing-and-potato-stamps/

Lai, L. (June 4, 2024). Task 4: Manual scripts. Lucy Lai’s Blog. https://blogs.ubc.ca/lucylaietec540/2024/06/04/task-4-manual-scripts/

Matt Huang

Matt’s response to this prompt is extremely thoughtful. He has tapped into layers in this assignment that I didn’t directly consider in my own response. His division between public and private modes, and the way that he directly considered the look and feel of public versus private took this response to a space that I didn’t explore. His unified narrative also helped to contextualize how his various objects are utilized in his day to day life. However, I wonder about the decision to go completely unscripted in both ‘layers’ of his response. I wonder if a more scripted and formal public persona would have provided more contrast to an off-the-cuff private response. I also think that some interweaving of the layers may have provoked more of a response in me as an audience member.

Lachelle Harris

Lachelle’s response was unique! I really enjoyed how she considered the audience and created more of an interactive response while adhering to the requirements of the assignment. Writing a riddle is SO tricky and the fact that I can even hazard guesses for her speaks to how effective her riddles were. My answers are: Watercolor paints, wallet, softball, waterbottle, granola bar, sunglasses, seed packet, ID card, keyfob, car keys, daytrip backpack. I appreciated how she considered both linguistic and auditory design in her response, and I think it was effective considering I was excited to respond!

Matt and Lachelle’s responses both directly tackled mode-bending in different ways – considering the public and private or linguistic and auditory as spaces to be explored.

References

Farris, L. (June 18, 2024). Task 7- mode-bending. Lachelle’s ETEC540 Blog. https://blogs.ubc.ca/texttech540/2024/06/18/task-7-mode-bending/

Huang, M. (June 30, 2024). Task 7: Mode-bending. Matt’s ETEC 540 Webspace. https://blogs.ubc.ca/mhetec540/2024/06/30/task-7-mode-bending/

I wanted to respond to this post as a sort of meta-meta-analysis. I found Rachel Lim’s review of the selected tracks to be fascinating. Rachel and I approached the initial curation assignment very differently, as she selected songs based on a couple of rules she established (one song from each continent and four to represent human emotions), while I leaned into the personal and just selected based on what songs I liked the most.

Rachel’s analysis is multi-faceted. She approached the most and least selected songs and drew conclusions. Both she and I arrived at a similar limitation to the assignment – it becomes challenging to analyze these selections because of a lack of understanding of the reasoning for the selections. This sentiment was echoed across many responses: Duncan, Seb, Carol, Carlo, Abdulehad, Shannon, Matt, April, Lucy, Lachelle, Warren, Robyn, Jonathan, Joti, Katy, Kris, Steve, Tina, and Steph all mentioned the missing qualitative data or context as limitations in their analysis (that list got out of hand).

 Rachel directly addresses the assumptions that can be made about our cohort and selections in a very direct way:

“Assumptions can be made that most participants are English-speaking residents from English-speaking countries with bachelor’s degrees involved in education, suggesting a familiarity with Western culture and possibly considering diversity and popularity in their selections.”

(Lim, 2024)

I wonder about the inclusion of diversity and popularity in that snippet. What is it about English speaking residents from English speaking countries with education backgrounds that would suggest a consideration of diversity and popularity? I think there’s a space to explore in that relationship. Anecdotally a lot of fellow MET students I’ve been in group projects so far have come from very different work backgrounds so I’d be interested to see if most do have bachelor’s degrees in education. My own background is tech (work) and art (school) which may be why that leapt out at me.

References

Lim, R. (2024). Task 9: Network assignment using golden records curation quiz data. Rachel’s Learning Journey. https://blogs.ubc.ca/metrlim/2024/07/25/task-9-network-assignment-using-golden-records-curation-quiz-data/