What Can Linguistics Do to Technology Design?

Abstract

Intelligent technologies have already revolutionized the economy, and they will continue to do so via autonomous, AI-based systems and artefacts. Artefacts can handle much more intellectually complicated tasks than was possible before. However, the technological transformation will set new demands for technology design and designers. Designing electromechanical technologies has been based on natural science, but intelligent technologies will extensively use knowledge of human research and information processing to create new artefacts. Intelligent information processing has so far been possible only for biological systems and especially for human minds. Therefore, their functions and behaviors will become essential both for the development of new technologies and for the technologies themselves. In this paper, we concentrate on the foundations of investigating how language and thought interact in design thinking. To illustrate the importance of interaction, we present three examples of phenomena in which design thinking and design language meet: explication, understanding, and linguistic (conceptual) change. Understanding how language and thinking are linked within these phenomena may improve the design processes and, e.g., how to train designers’ domain-specific skills.