The search for Technology throughout time.
As you review the OED with the term technology, you are immediately met with the first three results that have been marked “obsolete”. An unintended irony perhaps. Technology is an ever-evolving field, that moves at a rate beyond that of standard development. Obsoletism, is an apparent quality of technology, with gains in processing, and understanding of connections fuelling the field forward, but often leaving concepts wiped within days, months or years. The first current definition focuses on “the study” of “dealing with the mechanical arts and applied sciences”, a more critical comparison one may say (Technology, Oxford English Dictionary, 2022). Following that the definitions begin to incorporate terms such as “application” and “production” alongside mechanical arts, much more apt to the current standing of technology (Technology, Oxford English Dictionary, 2022).
Inversely, ‘text’ is offered only three entries, none of which are “obsolete” (Text, Oxford English Dictionary, 2022), the majority of which focus on the integration of speech with the intent of communicating further information through a visual representation.
Using Google Ngram Viewer, I compared the given search terms of ‘text’ and ‘technologies’, and then a secondary search with those terms as well as ‘texts’, ‘computers’ and ‘books’.
In the first image, it is apparent that text was the more popular topic, as it opened on the scene in high numbers in the 16 and 17th centuries. From there technology was minimal until e reached the 20th century, where it along with manufacturing and globalization boomed, surpassing text. This graph aligns with society, and its interest in learning, prior to tools such as the printing press, and then texts were a feature few could obtain, but as we advanced so did these processes to provide readily found texts to all, the same pattern occurred with technology. Start small, and then explode, however this time the explosion was large and short, access to technology became abundant and thus rose and fell within the turn of a century,
In the Ngram with additional terms, you are able to see how ‘books’ appeared quickly and in high numbers from the 1500s, leading me to believe it may have also been a popular term prior, however, the Ngram is only able to access records from that period of time forward. Since then ‘books’ in literature have risen and fallen, following a similar leading pattern to ‘text’, which aligns well as text and book may have been used interchangeably. I chose to add ‘computers’ to the term, as ‘technology’ encompasses many forms, and I had interested to see how technology mimicked the wave pattern. As you can see technology showed a much higher usage than computers, which would be conclusive as technology allowed for a larger topic field. Interestingly all these terms seem to lessen as we read the 21st century, making me inquire how and which terms are being used instead.
The connection between technology, text and teche, begins in the simplest of moments. Teche, as indicated in Oxford English Dictionary, can be identified as “a distinctive mark”, “to communicate knowledge” or have a physical connection between two people”. Teche began to grow in the communication of knowledge, as they relied on the use of communication, followed by texts. Technology spurred on by bringing in alternative forms of texts, and methods for learning and applying knowledge. In a cyclical manner, teaching shifted, from oral communication (showing, and stories to express ideas), to one reliant on the use of text (visual representations, that focus on structure learning), into the return of technology which incorporates aspects of the oral and societal communications with the structured use of texts. Teche is the ability to communicate knowledge, technology and texts are the tools in which knowledge would thus be communicated.
References:
Discover the story of Englishmore than 600,000 words, over a thousand years. Home : Oxford English Dictionary. (n.d.). from https://www.oed.com/
Google. (n.d.). Google books Ngram Viewer. Google Books. Retrieved May 20, 2022, from https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=text%2Ctechnology&year_start=1500&year_end=2019&case_insensitive=on&corpus=26&smoothing=3&direct_url=t4%3B%2Ctext%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Btext%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BText%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BTEXT%3B%2Cc0%3B.t4%3B%2Ctechnology%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Btechnology%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BTechnology%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BTECHNOLOGY%3B%2Cc0#t4%3B%2Ctext%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Btext%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BText%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BTEXT%3B%2Cc0%3B.t4%3B%2Ctechnology%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Btechnology%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BTechnology%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BTECHNOLOGY%3B%2Cc0rch
