Worlds of Reference Learning and Language from the Clay Tablet to the Computer

Name: Worlds of Reference Learning and Language from the Clay Tablet to the Computer
Price: 5.6 USD
Availability: InStock
ISBN: 9780521314039

ISBN-10: 0521314038

ISBN-13: 9780521314039

Edition: N/A

Authors: Tom McArthur

List price: $50.99

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Description:

Worlds of Reference is a history of dictionaries, encyclopedias and reference materials, but it is also far more than that, because it is concerned with the growth of civilisation, education and culture - and particularly how the human race learned to store information beyond the brain. It looks at how our species moved from being able to communicate only orally and to store information only in the head (rote memorisation) to the evolution of technologies for external reference: clay- and cunieform, reed-and-hieroglyph, bamboo-and-ideogram, parchment-and-alphabet, codices, books, pages, columns and so forth through the print revolution to the current electronic revolution. Along the way it…

Book details

List price: $50.99
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication date: 4/14/1988
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 244
Size: 6.14" wide x 9.13" long x 0.20" tall
Weight: 1.760
Language: English




Mind, word and world



Knowing, referring and recording: storing information beyond the brain



Information and World 3: in the beginning was the Word



The Ancient World



Containers of knowledge: the first reference technologies



Systems for knowledge: school and letter, book and library



The taxonomic urge: class, classic and classification



Missionaries and monasteries: reference and reverence



The Medieval World



Faith versus reason: summations of truth



The elites of knowledge: universitas



The Early Modern World



All knowledge for all men: the omne scibile and the printing press



Theme versus alphabet: the roots of lexicography



A blurring of languages: Latin and the vernaculars



The Modern World



The legislative urge: authoritative wordbooks



Reference and revolution: the encyclopedia proper



Thematic lexicography: word order and world order



Alphabetic lexicography: the unendable dictionary



Universal education: dictionaries for the people



Semantic fields and conceptual universes: the unshapeable lexis



Tensions and trends: overt alphabet, covert theme



Tomorrows World



Shaping things to come: the priests of High Technology



Knowledge, knowledge everywhere: planetary network, global book