A History of the Impact of Euro-American Linguistic Technologies on Chinese Information Infrastructure

欧美语言技术对中国信息基础设施影响史

• 批准号: 1152578
• 负责人: Thomas Mullaney
• 金额: $ 19.79万
• 依托单位: Stanford University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-09-01 至 2016-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1152578&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: History; Impact; Euro; American; Linguistic

IntroductionDuring the height of European imperialism in the nineteenth century, China was caught up in a new development in global information technology that was not of its own design. It was predicated on a set of linguistic technologies and symbolic systems (such as the telegraph and its attendant encoding systems) that depended upon something the Chinese language does not possess, an alphabetic script. What ensued was over a century of critical experimentation with the technological limits and potentials of Chinese script. Involving a vast, transnational cast of characters, a culture of innovation emerged around the Chinese Problem, and culminated in the development of a new character-based information infrastructure that would come to govern an immense Chinese character-based information environment, including indexes, lists, catalogs, dictionaries, Braille, telegraph codes, stenograph codes, typesetting machines, typewriters, computers, text messaging, and so forth. Based upon archival and oral historical work conducted in 55 archives, special collections, museums, private collections, and sites in more than ten countries, this project charts the global history of this novel Chinese information infrastructure, employing its most important and illustrative domain, the Chinese typewriter, as a lens through which to understand this broader history.Intellectual Merit This project is in direct conversation with scholarship in at least ten distinct fields beyond the history of science and technology. As a study of an unexamined aspect of modern East Asian history, this project is of critical interest to specialists in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean history. As a history involving a wide array of major corporations including IBM, the RAND Corporation, Mergenthaler, Olivetti, and Wang Laboratories (among many others), the project builds on scholarship in Business History, Economics, and Political Science. Closely connected to the history of the Chinese language itself, this project also draws upon and contributes to Linguistics and Cultural Studies. At the same time, the fascinating and unexamined history of the Chinese Typewriter Girl is likely to be of interest to researchers in Women's Studies, both inside and outside of China.Potential Broader Impacts Beyond academia, this project will be of substantial interest to a broad audience within professional and public circles. It will provide easy entry to practitioners and theorists in design, human-computer interaction, natural language processing, and other branches of computer science into the still poorly understood world of Chinese information technology. Within the public media, this project will foster a deeper, empirical understanding of Chinese information technology as well; given China's emergence as a global IT powerhouse, acquiring that understanding has become more critical than ever. Results of the research will be disseminated through a wide variety of media, including single-author articles, collaborative articles, an interactive research website, public lectures, and a book monograph. This project will also continue to inform the development of new undergraduate and graduate coursework pertaining to the history of technology, particularly in non-Western contexts.

介绍了19世纪欧洲帝国主义的高度，中国陷入了全球信息技术的新发展，该发展不是其自身设计的。它是基于一组语言技术和符号系统（例如电报及其随附的编码系统），这些技术依赖于中文所没有的东西，即字母脚本。随之而来的是一个多世纪的批判性实验，对中国文字的技术限制和潜力进行了批判性实验。 Involving a vast, transnational cast of characters, a culture of innovation emerged around the Chinese Problem, and culminated in the development of a new character-based information infrastructure that would come to govern an immense Chinese character-based information environment, including indexes, lists, catalogs, dictionaries, Braille, telegraph codes, stenograph codes, typesetting machines, typewriters, computers, text messaging, and so forth.基于55个档案，特殊收藏，博物馆，私人收藏和十个国家的网站进行的档案和口述历史工作，该项目绘制了这一新型中国信息信息基础架构的全球历史，它采用了中国最重要和最有说服力的领域，最重要的打字机，作为一门更广泛的历史的范围，这是一个更广泛的历史。作为对现代东亚历史未经审查的方面的研究，该项目对中国，日本和韩国历史的专家来说是关键的兴趣。作为涉及各种大型公司的历史，包括IBM，Rand Corporation，Mergenthaler，Olivetti和Wang Laboratories（等），该项目基于商业历史，经济学和政治学的奖学金。该项目与中文本身的历史密切相关，还借鉴了语言学和文化研究。同时，中国打字机女孩的迷人和未经审查的历史可能引起研究人员在中国内外的妇女研究中感兴趣的。在学术界以外的更广泛的影响力，该项目将对专业和公共圈子的广泛受众产生重大的兴趣。它将为实践者和理论家提供轻松的设计，人为计算机互动，自然语言处理以及计算机科学的其他分支，以进入中国信息技术的知识渊博。在公共媒体中，该项目还将促进对中国信息技术的更深入的经验理解。鉴于中国作为全球IT强国的出现，因此，理解比以往任何时候都变得更加关键。该研究的结果将通过各种媒体进行传播，包括单作者文章，协作文章，互动研究网站，公开讲座和书籍专着。该项目还将继续为与技术历史有关的新本科和研究生课程的发展提供信息，尤其是在非西方背景下。