I used the Voice to Text Dictation functionality on iPhone to generate the following text:

“Hello I’m Helen so today I want to tell a story about my experiences with animals in the cooler so I grew up in Beijing which is a pretty metro city was very few animals Derek some burgers but that’s pretty much it so I was pretty surprised when I first came to Vancouver to see there’s so many wild animals does pretty mean around in the city like in ABC I know there’s like a lot of squirrels and birds and seek goals Krauss and pay and a lot of other animals I was like pretty surprised to see you like squirrels actually eat out of the garbage cans I was so surprised to see them just like fly into like tongue into the garbage can and just like random garbage in it like at first I was like that’s a little bit disgusting and then I’ll sake and the squirrels was just trying to survive and they don’t have that much like paint horse laying around on campus sauce it’s probably better for them to actually eat garbage and like try to survive and also I was like pretty surprised to see you actually I haven’t seen rock form in the city he saw them in the zoo but I don’t see them moving around in a pack so one day I finish dinner and I walked from the bus station to make a resident I will say on this road by myself and it’s pretty dark and there’s some like you don’t lamb spider Lake pretty little I couldn’t see much and I just saw this group of shadows like it’s across the hillside like stopped and then I was like a little bit scared and trying to see what’s going on and I just saw the giant pack of raccoons like 15 or like 20 raccoons there’s like a really huge one that I like about a meter long till super fluffy movie behind their body and there’s like really tiny ones there’s like a really small like a 10 cm long like even smaller across the state following their parents or grandparents I guess I didn’t know that it raccoons come in such a huge pack I I thought they were just like a two or three in a small family but no they were like a lot of them moving and search pack and their eyes light up in the really dark Knight which is a little scary to enter green with the second shiny green color and yeah so high and they didn’t attack me or anything I was like I didn’t go in and mess with them either way is there’s like one raccoon go closer but there’s like 15 of them so yeah I’ll just say stop there and they’re just like than me to in and they just say didn’t really care so they go move on with their day I guess I saw them like going into the garbage can as well I was pretty surprised that clinic open the lid of a really large garbage can by themselves they turn out like squirrels first day only going to the open back for second open the Latin salsa and going to the sake treasure of food I guess for them yeah so yeah I I thought it’s really interesting to see the amount of animals in the cooler and it’s a second really when you experience for me which is pretty cool I guess I also had experience with coyotes which is a quarter because I’ve never seen coyote before Yep that’s it”

The original audio file is also included for reference:

– What is “wrong” in the text?

In the text, many words are transcribed to different words with similar pronunciations such as “Vancouver” to “the cooler”, “birds” to “burgers”, and “UBC” to “ABC”. My accent probably contributes to mistakes like these. Nevertheless, it demonstrates that oral messages are prone to errors in the transmission process. The details of the story can potentially change as it passes along, producing a chaotic or even conflicting collective memory for the society. Different interpretations can stem.

– What if you had “scripted” the story? What difference might that have made?

The text contains many instances of repeated words and meaningless words such as “I was like”, “yeah”, and “I guess”. They are signs that I have forgotten what I was going to say and trying to fill the pauses with something. Written storytelling can be modified and refined to eliminate these instances and convey more cohesive meanings. While it may “destroy” the memory, it can also “restore” the memory (Ong, 2002, pg. 15). In addition, it mediates the progression of thoughts by providing time and space and fosters the development of “higher psychological functions” (Haas, 2013, pg.14) by encouraging “abstractness and precision” (Haas, 2013, pg. 12).

– How does the text deviate from conventions of written English?

The largest deviation that caught my attention was the text did not have punctuation like commas or periods to separate the sentences. I found it more difficult to understand the meaning of the text by reading it than by listening to it because of the missing punctuation. Knowing that punctuation in Chinese is a quite recent invention, I am interested in exploring the history of punctuation in different cultures and examining its impact on writing systems and human cognition. The following discussions aim to dive deeper into punctuation, an important writing technology, and demonstrate that it enhances writing to serve the transmission and construction of knowledge.

Punctuation in western culture was invented in the 3rd century BCE by Aristophanes (Houston, 2015). He introduced three types of dots that represent pauses in oral speeches. They gradually evolve into modern punctuation to symbolize grammatical boundaries. Adding spaces and punctuation in texts can minimize ambiguity and ensure that the meaning of sentences is interpreted correctly (Houston, 2015). It is a unique writing technique that helps people organize ideas, express emotions, and convey messages precisely.

It can be surprising that although Chinese writing characters can date back to 1250 BCE (Schmandt-Besserat, 2009), punctuation was not used until the 20th century (Chengye, 2007). Note that punctuation serves a similar functionality in Chinese compared to English, despite the two writing systems being different — English is a completely phonemic writing system whereas Chinese is not (Gnanadesikan, 2011). A famous example to demonstrate this is the ambiguous interpretations of the sentence “下雨天留客天留我不留” in “New Collection of Xie Ren Yi” (《增订解人颐新集》) by Tianyang Zhao. One way to break up the sentence is “下雨天留客，天留我不留”, which translates to “It is raining outside like the sky wants the guest to stay, but I do not want the guest to stay”. Another way to break up the sentence is “下雨天，留客天，留我不？留”, which translates to “It is raining outside, so it is a perfect day to let the guest stay. Do you want me to stay? Yes, please stay” (Baidubaike, n.d.).

Writing is situated in culture and society with inseparable connections “to knowledge, to truth, and to power” (Haas, 2013, pg. 5). The late invention of punctuation in China has political roots, and the introduction of punctuation by Hu Shi (Chengye, 2007) is seen as a democratic movement. Similar to western culture, in ancient eras, literacy or writing is preceived as a privilege of the authorities. And it is widely believed that people need to “hold the words of Sage in awe” (Confucius, 1999) — putting punctuation in books written by authoritative figures is disrespectful. After adding the punctuation, people found that texts become easier to read and learn. In addition, punctuation makes it possible to freeze the precise record of information “in a visual field forever” (Ong, 2002, pg. 11). The writing technology further separates writing from “orality” (Ong, 2002, pg. 5), and it consolidates the “materiality of writing” (Haas, 2013, pg. 1). It also opens up spaces for discussion and critiques instead of letting the readers blame themselves for the incorrect interpretations. Overall, punctuation has a profound impact on education in China.

References

Baidubaike. (n.d.). 下雨天留客天留我不留. Baidubaike. https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%8B%E9%9B%A8%E5%A4%A9%E7%95%99%E5%AE%A2%E5%A4%A9%E7%95%99%E6%88%91%E4%B8%8D%E7%95%99/7298117?fr=aladdin

Chengye, H. (2007). Hu shi and the first advocate of the new punctuation, wang yuanfang. Chinese Studies in History, 40(4), 86-92. https://doi.org/10.2753/CSH0009-4633400406

Confucius. (1999). The analects of Confucius : a philosophical translation. New York :Ballantine Books,

Gnanadesikan, A. E. (2011).“The First IT Revolution.” In The writing revolution: Cuneiform to the internet. (Vol. 25). John Wiley & Sons (pp. 1-10).

Haas, C. (2013). “The Technology Question.” In Writing technology: Studies on the materiality of literacy. Routledge. (pp. 3-23).

Houston, K. (2015). Commas, semicolons and question marks are so commonplace it seems as if they were always there – but that’s not the case. Keith Houston explains their history. https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20150902-the-mysterious-origins-of-punctuation

Ong, W. (2002). Orality and literacy: The technologizing of the word. New York; London: Routledge.

Schmandt-Besserat, D. (2009). “Origins and Forms of Writing.” In Bazerman, C. (Ed.). Handbook of research on writing: History, society, school, individual, text. New York, NY: Routledge.

Hello, I’m Lianghui Zhang (or you can call me Helen). After graduating from UBC computer engineering, I started to work in my hometown Beijing. I have worked in a large technology company for a few months, and now I’m working in a small company as a data analyst and teacher for part of our professional development program in data analysis.

For this task, I took a photo of my work backpack. Here is a list of all my items from top left to bottom right:

– Alcohol wipes from two brands. One brand is “Xinxiangyin” with the label “New packaging. Skincare wipes that contains APG cleaning molecules and lemon and seaweed extracts. Softly clean the skin and deeply moisturize it. One piece.” The other is from the restaurant “Song Fa” with labels “established in 1969. Singapore Bak Kut Teh”;

– Annual ticket for visiting the local parks. The cost is 100 yuan. And it lists the terms and conditions for using it, “1. Visiting range: Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven, Zhongshan, Beihai, Jingshan, Taoran Pavilion, Zoo… 2. During legal holidays and cultural events, you need to visit the parks with tickets according to the park rules. 3. Restricted to entering the main park entrance, not for special locations. 4. Only the ticket owner can use it. Limited to two usages per park per day. Reselling the ticket is prohibited. 5. Time limit: 1/1/2020 to 1/31/2021. Recharge is necessary for extended use”;

– ID card;

– The access card for my apartment’s main entrance. The first line says “Prevent and control the epidemic, everyone is responsible”. And it is followed by the “Guanghuaxincheng Community residents access card”;

– Band-aid labeled with “tear from here” on the left side;

– Pen;

– Packet tissue labeled with “This is not normal daily tissue. This is BANBU (it has a similar pronunciation to bamboo). From simplistic and moderate living style. New (as opposed to recycled) bamboo tissue that feels like cloth”. I didn’t choose it because of its branding though. I chose it only because it was cheap;

– Portable power bank for my phone;

– Face masks labeled with “experience Beijing”, a giveaway for shopping at the subway grocery store;

– Apartment and office keys;

– Work laptop with earbuds, mouse, and charger.

Normally, I would leave my laptop at work and carry a much smaller bag. I’m working from home this month due to the new quarantine policies for COVID, so I still have my work laptop here. COVID also influenced my other carry items. The alcohol wipes and tissue are used for cleaning my desk at work and my hands. The expired park ticket is in my bag, but I did not visit any park in 2020; reservations and the limitations on the number of visiting people are preventing me from utilizing the ticket well. ID card is necessary for doing the COVID test that we do every day now. Face masks are still mandatory in public places. Sometimes the strap breaks, so I usually carry a backup in my bag. The mask would not be in the bag in the pre-COVID era. And hopefully, COVID will go away, so I don’t need to carry it around anymore (the stripped “experience Beijing” masks are cool to wear though).

Another item that I carry with me every day is my phone. It is used to take this photo, so it is not in the photo. In a sense, it is still evident as the power bank is carried to prevent it from dying. My phone’s battery life is relatively short. The power bank can largely reduce my anxiety.

Text technologies

There are both print and digital text technologies in my bag. Laptops and phones provide digital reading and writing spaces. For example, I use my laptop to store documents, write reports, and make presentations. And I use my phone to read news and novels. They are also used as the main communication device to express my ideas and feelings to friends, families, and co-workers. The communication can take the form of synchronous (Zoom meetings, calls) or asynchronous (texts, emails, and social media). Earbuds help me focus on the most important message in noisy public spaces for these synchronous communications, so it is also a text technology.

The ID card is both a print and a digital text technology. The ID number is printed on the physical medium, but it is only meaningful when it is connected to the large database to identify the corresponding person. If there is no digital database storing the bijection relationship between the number and the person, it becomes impossible to communicate the person’s basic identity (name, age, address) with this printed card. The parking ticket looks similar to the ID card, but it works differently to my knowledge. The ticket owner’s information is not digitally stored, so the only way to match the user to the owner is to manually compare the photo to the face. The photo is a text in the sense that it is used to communicate the person’s identity. And the camera used to take the photo is also a text technology because it is a practical art to facilitate communication.

The pen is clearly a writing tool. In addition, the packaging of the alcohol wipes and tissue serves as a mini advertising sign. They are also text technology that helps communicate the brand’s trustworthiness to its consumers.

Archeologist findings

The archeologist will notice that I live in China or a country that speaks Chinese. The most valuable findings will come from my phone as it reveals both my personal life and a snapshot of the way people communicate with each other at this time. If the digital device dies, they can still find out more correct or misleading information about my culture, values, and favorite food by looking at my choice of alcohol wipes and tissue.