Thomas Petzold Thesis
Thomas Petzold B.Arts (Hons), The Open University London, UK; M.Arts, Europa Universität Viadrina, Frankfurt/Oder, Germany; R , W „ W . P T ,“ W ! , G ! (Magister, Sofia University „St. Kliment Ohridski,“ Sofia, Bulgaria) A dissertation presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Creative Industries Faculty Queensland University of Technology (QUT) 2011 Languages Internet research Media studies Complexity research Language evolution Governance of languages on the Internet Wikipedia Television Google Translation technology …, or, as a keyword cloud (using www.wordle.net) i Language-use has proven to be the most complex and complicating of all Internet features, yet people and institutions invest enormously in language and cross- language features because they are fundamental to the success of the Internet’s past, present and future. The thesis takes into focus the developments of the latter – features that facilitate and signify linking between or across languages – both in their historical and current contexts. In the theoretical analysis, the conceptual platform of inter-language linking is developed to both accommodate efforts towards a new social complexity model for the co-evolution of languages and language content, as well as to create an open analytical space for language and cross-language related features of the Internet and beyond. The practiced uses of inter-language linking have changed over the last decades. Before and during the first years of the WWW, mechanisms of inter-language linking were at best important elements used to create new institutional or content arrangements, but on a large scale they were just insignificant. This has changed with the emergence of the WWW and its development into a web in which content in different languages co-evolve.
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