The algorithm's hidden layers: Nurturant matrices, quantitative poetry, and the religious ethics of language technology

Une taxinomie de la connaissance technologique est developpee, en essayant de montrer l'interaction entre les scientifiques et les ingenieurs, a travers la recherche industrielle et en laboratoire

Notes on Contributors

Notes on Contributors

Notes on Contributors

This letter explores the intricate historical and contemporary links between large language models (LLMs) and cognitive science through the lens of information theory, statistical language models, and socioanthropological linguistic theories. The emergence of LLMs highlights the enduring significance of information-based and statistical learning theories in understanding human communication. These theories, initially proposed in the mid-20th century, offered a visionary framework for integrating computational science, social sciences, and humanities, which nonetheless was not fully fulfilled at that time. The subsequent development of sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology, especially since the 1970s, provided critical perspectives and empirical methods that both challenged and enriched this framework. This letter proposes that two pivotal concepts derived from this development, metapragmatic function and indexicality, offer a fruitful theoretical perspective for integrating the semantic, textual, and pragmatic, contextual dimensions of communication, an amalgamation that contemporary LLMs have yet to fully achieve. The author believes that contemporary cognitive science is at a crucial crossroads, where fostering interdisciplinary dialogues among computational linguistics, social linguistics and linguistic anthropology, and cognitive and social psychology is in particular imperative. Such collaboration is vital to bridge the computational, cognitive, and sociocultural aspects of human communication and human-AI interaction, especially in the era of large language and multimodal models and human-centric Artificial Intelligence (AI).

<i>Notes on Contributors</i>

Large language models (LLMs) challenge long‐standing assumptions in linguistics and linguistic anthropology by generating human‐like language without relying on rule‐based structures. This introduction to the special issue Language Machines calls for renewed engagement with LLMs as socially embedded language technologies. We trace the intellectual genealogy that led linguistic anthropology to sideline such technologies, highlighting how disciplinary boundaries and language ideologies shaped this absence. Arguing for the field's unique potential to analyze the semiotic, interactional, and ideological dimensions of LLMs, we invite future contributions that expand linguistic anthropology's scope and relevance in the age of machine‐mediated communication.

Au XVIII e siecle, les bateaux etaient consideres comme des instruments scientifiques permettant de voyager et connaitre ainsi la geographie, la topographie et la meteorologie a travers le monde

Foundational linguistic anthropological theories of community, identity, and multimodality, among other topics, offer invaluable insights into communicative practices on social media. Phenomena on social media also require researchers to continually adapt and update these theories—which were first conceptualized before social media became integral to everyday life—to account for the unique communicative possibilities afforded by constantly evolving digital technology. Like anthropological studies in in-person contexts, anthropological studies of language and culture online vary in scope, theoretical framing, and methodological approach depending on their central topics of inquiry. Social media can be studied within a primarily in-person ethnographic project as one of many sites of communication for members of a community in addition to (or overlapping with) contexts such as work, school, and the home. Social media can also be studied as primary sites of analysis through digital ethnographic approaches, typically focused on the communication patterns within a network or community of social media users on a single platform. Linguistic anthropological perspectives on social media are necessarily interdisciplinary, informed by scholarship in related fields including sociolinguistics, cultural anthropology, communication studies, and media studies. To this interdisciplinary understanding linguistic anthropology contributes a unique perspective attuned to the details of linguistic structure and the ways language and culture are mutually constitutive.

This article proposes a new integration of linguistic anthropology and machine learning (ML) around convergent interests in both the underpinnings of language and making language technologies more socially responsible. While linguistic anthropology focuses on interpreting the cultural basis for human language use, the ML field of interpretability is concerned with uncovering the patterns that Large Language Models (LLMs) learn from human verbal behavior. Through the analysis of a conversation between a human user and an LLM-powered chatbot, we demonstrate the theoretical feasibility of a new, conjoint field of inquiry, cultural interpretability (CI). By focusing attention on the communicative competence involved in the way human users and AI chatbots coproduce meaning in the articulatory interface of human-computer interaction, CI emphasizes how the dynamic relationship between language and culture makes contextually sensitive, open-ended conversation possible. We suggest that, by examining how LLMs internally “represent” relationships between language and culture, CI can: (1) provide insight into long-standing linguistic anthropological questions about the patterning of those relationships; and (2) aid model developers and interface designers in improving value alignment between language models and stylistically diverse speakers and culturally diverse speech communities. Our discussion proposes three critical research axes: relativity, variation, and indexicality.

David B. Kronenfeld, Plastic glasses and church fathers: Semantic extension from the ethnoscience tradition. (Oxford studies in anthropological linguistics, 3.) Oxford &amp; New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Pp. xii, 273. Hb 24.95. - Volume 27 Issue 3

Rethinking History, Science, and Religion: An Exploration of Conflict and the Complexity Principle

1. Introduction Shekarnameh Ilkhani is a book about training and treatment of wild animals and birds, written by Ali Ibn Mansour Halvani based on several other books like Baznameh and Shekarnameh, especially that of Malekshahi named after Toghan Teimurkhan. This book consists of three main sections. The first section is an introduction which is important for the development of Baznameh and the history of science. The second and third sections are about training and treatment of hunting birds and animals, respectively. Although this book is important for its linguistics, historic and literary aspects, it is neither corrected nor introduced, yet. In this research, the author introduces some versions of this book and examines different aspects of them. 2. Method Firstly, the manuscript of the Shekarnameh Ilkhani was discovered from various manuscripts catalogues. Then, all of the manuscripts were checked in terms of originality and relations and oldness. After that, Astan manuscript was selected as the main manuscript and other manuscripts were compared to Astan. Next, all of the differences among manuscripts were reported in the footnote. Afterwards, the textual criticism was prepared. The final data was gathered using libraries procedure information. This information was analyzed in various aspects. 3. Results and Discussion The word of Baznameh is composed of two parts. The first part is Baz, which means the falcon. The last part of this word is Nameh, which means the book. Since falcons were important for ancestors, the training and treatment of wild birds are usually considered in these types of books. As a result, this book is named Baznameh. Moreover, in Persian language, the synonym of Baznameh is Shekarnameh. There are many other instances of Baznameh in Persian such as Noushirvani Baznameh, Kasri Baznameh, Samanian Baznameh, Mahmoud Ghaznavi Baznameh, Nasavi Baznameh written by Ali Ghoravi, Malekshahi Shekarnameh written by Khajeh Abolhasan Ali Ebne Mohammad Neyshabouri, Ilkhani Shekarnameh written by Ali Ebne Mansour Helvani, Seid Almorad Fi Ghavanin Al Sayyad or Javareh nameh Emamieh written by Khodayar khan Abbasi written by Filot, Baysonghori Baznameh, Altazkareh fi elm Al Bozdareh written by Ali Ebne Zahed Shoushtari written by Mir Hashem Mohaddes, Shahbaz nameh, and Naseri Baznameh written by Teymour Mirza Hesam al dole. The literature review of Shekarnameh is as follows: The Ilkhani Shekarnameh has not been published, yet. However, it has been examined in some studies. Some of these studies are as follows: • Mohammad Taghi Binesh has studied the structure of Ilkhani Shekarnameh in an article titled Baznamehs and Bazyari. • Ali Ghoravi has briefly studied this book in an article titled a brief history of Baznameh and introduction to some Baznamehs. • Parviz Azkaee has briefly introduced this book in an article titled Falconry in Tashayyo cyclopedia. • Sadegh Ayene Vand has mentioned the existence of this book in about three lines in an article titled Alseyd through Malek library version. • Felex Tower has briefly mentioned that the Malekshahi Shekarnameh is a model for Ilkhani Shekarnameh in an article titled the history of natural science in Persian literature. • Mohamad Ali Moulavi has mentioned some references and has introduced this book in Great Encyclopedia of Islam. • Hasan Tajbakhsh has considered this book in medical and dental Based on the text of Shekarnameh Ilkhani, the author of this book is a person named Ali Ebne Mansour Halvani/ Halvaee/ Khavafi. In historical books and biographies, there is no information about him and the only reference for identifying him is Shekarnameh Ilkhani. From the text of this book, it can be concluded that he was an attendant of Tagha Teymourkhan. He had been in charge of Ghushkhaneh. Moreover, he was completing his Shekarnameh druing Khaje Ali Moayyed's era. With reference to the text of this book, surely, it can be said that he was an Esna Ashari Shiae. Similarity among Ilkhani Shekarnameh and other similar books (Baznameh) in Persian literature: With the analysis of the Persian Shekarnameh, it can be concluded that some parts of this Shekarnameh is similar to the following books in terms of the material and spirituality. Some sections of this Shekarnameh are exactly similar to Malekshahi Shekarnameh and Yanal Khalil Tash Baznameh, Kasra Baznamehs and the section of falconry of Jame Ol Olum written by Settini. Moreover, some sections of this book are similar to Nasavi Baznameh in terms of idioms and professional words. This book contains three parts: • An introduction to the history of falconry and reasons beyond writing this book. • About training and treatment of hunting birds. • About training and treatment of hunting animals. 4. Conclusion Shekarnameh Ilkhani is one of the most important books in the 8th century and Ilkhanan dynasty. The text of this Shekarnameh is important for language research especially linguistic studies and studying the special terms which are used in this period of time as well as studying falconry terms. There is no information about Ali Ibn Mansour Halvani in the references. However, by investigating the text of Shekarnameh Ilkhani, we found that he was a Bazdar of Toghaytimur khan and Khajeh Ali Moayyad and that he was Shia. There are six manuscripts of shekarnameh Ilkhani in libraries around the world and the oldest manuscript is in Malek library, numbered 1681. A complete manuscript is also available in Astan Qods Razavi library, numbered 28207. This Shekarnameh contains three parts. The first part is an introduction to the history of falconry till 8th century and reasons beyond writing this book. The second part is about the treatment and training of birds. The last part is about training and treatment of other wild animals. Unfortunately, this book has not been published till now. Because of the importance of this book, it is worthwhile to correct and publish this book via criticism methods based on Astan Qods Razavi manuscripts and compare this manuscript with other manuscripts. Moroever, linguistic features of this work can be used in stylistics and textual studeis of the Persian literature.

Jian-Liang Lin; Hong-Sen Yan. Decoding the Mechanisms of Antikythera Astronomical Device. x + 281 pp., figs., bibls., apps., index. Heidelberg: Springer, 2016. $109 (cloth).

Most modern language technology for proofing tools, machine translation and other applications is based on machine learning. However, very few Indigenous languages have the necessary amount of texts for making tools based on this technology. When most language technology is based on large language models (LLMs), it bears the risk of most of Indigenous language online text being produced by neural text generation. The result would be that online texts cannot be trusted as a source for authentic Indigenous languages anymore. An alternative is the work done at UiT – The Arctic University of Norway during the last 20 years, based on linguistics. Sámi language tools have been made available for both industry and language communities, with open licenses. These have been widely used by translators, teachers and various software companies. The article analyzes the following four parts of language technology development: language data, language tool development, making the tools available to users, and ethical use of available language technology tools. We make extensive use of the CARE principles, and discuss the shortcomings of existing software and data licensing schemes. Finally, we introduce a 3D table to help classify language technology projects with respect to their suitability for Indigenous languages.