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"The flagship's wreckage" [2019] ELECD 1388; in Broekman, M. Jan (ed), "Rethinking Law and Language" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2019) 283

Book Title: Rethinking Law and Language

Editor(s): Broekman, M. Jan

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Section: Chapter 9

Section Title: The flagship’s wreckage

Number of pages: 32

Abstract/Description:

Life in language is today a life in conversions. They are related to sometimes old-fashioned legal concepts: in particular, the idea of property comes to the fore. Conversions are also very modern: they depend for instance on deep datafication and sustain the most recent forms of artificial intelligence. IT makes us focus on the protocol: the words in digital context performed by many organizations. Ten key words clarify the two types of linguistic bounds: among them the analog “subject” and the digital “address,” or the “object” and “code,” the “ego” and “sender,” the “you” and “receiver.” They lead to hermeneutics rather than to a dictionary of parallel terms. The latter is impossible, and that is exemplary for the position of this entire book: speech is lost in motion; its endangered features are in saying the language—and saying is a matter of new forms and a new understanding of personal responsibility.