Bernstein Response

After reading the Bernstein article I think what was new for me was how he drew the parallels between language and technology. As language advances so does technology. I liked how he talked about how the importance of language changes as the culture become more literate and technology dependent. The line that stuck out to me the most is “Prose has killed poetry many times but poetry doesn’t seem to get the message. But maybe that’s because poetry’s is the vampire medium, sucking the blood from other modes of writing and leaving them lifeless, while itself living on into an eternity at the cost of mortality. This is why poetry often metamorphoses into prose- to regain its historical existence by casting aside its ghoulish triumph.” (508)

One of the reasons this article suggests for experimenting with writing is to open up the new possibilities. Bernstein said that language and technology go hand in hand, so if one were to experiment with language they could possibly create a new way for people of the culture to communicate with one another. I think one of the reasons that Bernstein gives for why people have not experimented with writing as much is because of the invention of the printing press and other machines designed to mass produce literature limited the ways writing could be presented to the public. Once a large portion of the culture became literate they became accustomed to reading and writing a certain way.

The only thing I would hold onto from this reading is knowing that technology is based on the language of the culture, and that experimentation of language could create new types of technology.