Computation, Interpretation, and Mediation

The chapter shows the fundamental importance of ideas from computer science to the concerns of linguistic anthropology (and to the concerns of culture-rich and context-sensitive approaches to communication more generally). It reviews some of the key concepts and claims of computer science (language, recognition, automaton, Universal Turing Machine, and so forth). It argues that the sieve, as both a physical device and an analytic concept, is of fundamental importance not just to anthropology, but also to linguistics, biology, philosophy, and critical theory. And it argues that computers, as both engineered and imagined, are essentially text-generated and text-generating sieves. In relating computer science to linguistic anthropology, this chapter also attempts to build bridges between long-standing rivals: face to face interaction and mathematical abstraction, linguistic relativity and universal grammar, mediators and intermediaries.