75447 2712-9934 6 3 20 2025 1-206

EDI RUS 1-9 0000-0001-5346-0447 Shenzhen University Deng Pan

Shenzhen, China

Darmstadt Technical University Liggieri Kevin

Darmstadt, Germany

The Language and Poetics of Machines The intelligibility of mechanical processes lends a peculiar expressive power to the machine. It is manifested throughout the history of human culture from Heron of Alexandria to La Mettrie and contemporary conceptions of cellular machines. The machines of Karl Marx, Ernst Kapp, Eduard Jan Dijktserhuis, or Lewis Mumford reflect the development of Western thought, while the perpetuum mobile or the soft machines of nanotechnology represent unattainable dreams of reason. And then there are the machines of Jean Tinguely, Tomi Ungerer, or Rube Goldberg that whimsically undermine the notions that machines need to be useful. All of this may refer to a compositional grammar of mechanical elements which was proposed by Christopher Polhem in the 16th century and elaborated 300 years later, e.g., by Franz Reuleaux or Carl Bach, and subsequently reflected by Anson Rabinbach or Georges Canguilhem.  However, the language of machines and machine language is never free of power relations, especially in the 20th century. Machine language partly reflects and stabilizes topographical and gendered differences. This special issue gathers several key works to explore the theme of “Machines and Language.” We examine this topic through three dimensions: gender, capital, and culture. Our goal is to investigate the ongoing tension between technological discourse and humanistic thought. By viewing the machine through the prism of language, we reveal a complex spectrum of power, desire, and meaning 10.48417/technolang.2025.03.01 1:62 Language Poetics Machines Gender Capital Culture https://soctech.spbstu.ru/article/2025.20.1/ 1-9.pdf

RAR RUS 10-25 Darmstadt Technical University Liggieri Kevin

Darmstadt, Germany

Darmstadt Technical University Kurz Laura

Darmstadt, Germany

The Gendered Language of Technology The aim of this article is to examine the partly unquestioned notions of how to ask about technology use and gender in a socio-cultural historical community of the 1950s-1980s with a focus on education. For in this defined historical and systematic framework, the connection between technology - language - gender, which is central to industrialized nations, becomes apparent for the first time. Accordingly, two problematization discourses come into particular focus: 1) Historically: How have different meanings of gender and technology manifested in Western discourse in the 20th century and thus continued into the present? 2) Philosophically: How have self-perceptions of gender in individuals been shaped by technology-related language? Where can we recognize interpretative sovereignties in the linguistic images and terminologies and what are the conditions and premises for this? Without the perspective on scientific history, philosophy and continuity, the current digital gender gap, as decidedly highlighted by the D21 initiative, cannot be understood and problematized in its complexity and historicity. The aim is to use a dual approach to contextualize and reflect on ideas of technology and gendered characteristics in linguistic images, as otherwise 1) language determines our approach to technology too hastily and 2) language can only be used in a standardized way. Self-attributions of actors in technology-related language images are historically contingent and systematically processed. Language use can become as a self-fulfilling prophecy and manifest (self-) conceptions such as “women understand less about technology” or “women cannot use technology” and thus expose people and entire groups to discriminatory social practices. 10.48417/technolang.2025.03.02 305: 62 Gender Language Quantification Computer education Gender gap https://soctech.spbstu.ru/article/2025.20.2/ 10-25.pdf

RAR RUS 26-42 0000-0002-4559-3271 Nanjing Normal University Zhang Fugong

Nanjing, China

Nanjing Normal University Wang Yuanzhao

Nanjing, China

The Dialectics of Labour, Machinery, and Capital – An Interpretation Centered on Marx’s Notes on Johann Beckmann II and Capital The historical essence of machinery and of its capitalist application, along with the dialectics of labour, machinery, and capital, has always been a crucial subject in Marx’s critical theory of capitalism. In “Beiheft C” (1863) Marx compiled excerpts from A History of Inventions by the German technologist Johann Beckmann. Beckmann’s account of the dual social impact of machinery during the manufacturing period, particularly his historical narrative of workers’ intense struggles against machinery, brought Marx to confront the so-called “Beckmann Dilemma”: How are the primordial dual aspects of machinery possible? Within the overarching framework of historical materialism and the critique of political economy, Marx progressively deepened his theoretical perspective and intellectual logic for resolving the “Beckmann Dilemma” in the Economic Manuscripts of 1861–1863. There he examined themes such as the relationship between machinery and wages, as well as machinery and primitive accumulation. In Capital, Marx comprehensively revealed the historical logic and essential laws governing machinery and its capitalist deployment, correctly distinguishing between machinery as such and its capitalist deployment. He exposed the determinate social forms of machinery and its emancipatory potential, while profoundly clarifying the real essence of the contradiction between workers and machines and proposing the corresponding strategies of struggle – thereby achieving both a scientific resolution and a fundamental transcendence of the “Beckmann Dilemma.” The excavation and critical analysis of Marx’s and Beckmann’s theories of machinery will provide valuable insights for reflecting on contemporary human-machine relations in the era of digital intelligence. 10.48417/technolang.2025.03.03 1: 62 Marx; Johann Beckmann; Machinery; Technologie; Notes on Johann Beckmann; Capital https://soctech.spbstu.ru/article/2025.20.3/ 26-42.pdf

RAR RUS 43-63 0000-0001-6874-1073 Russian State University for the Humanities Markov Alexander

Moscow, Russia

0000-0002-9736-0912 Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration Sosnovskaya Anna

St. Petersburg, Russia,

The Language of Machines from Baroque Automata to Digital Hybrids: The Poetics of Technological Evolution This article presents a comprehensive interdisciplinary study of the evolution of the language of machines, examined as a reflection of fundamental epistemological and cultural paradigms of different historical epochs. In order to achieve for the first time an interdisciplinary methodological synthesis of Object-Oriented Ontology, the theory of hyperobjects, and historical-cultural analysis, the paper proposes to study machines as actors possessing their own language, thereby overcoming the traditional anthropocentric approach in studies of technology. The central thesis maintains that machines have never been neutral tools but have consistently functioned as active actors that shape and transmit specific linguistic codes embodying the aesthetic, social, and power structures of their time. The methodological framework synthesizes the principles of Graham Harman's object-oriented ontology, Timothy Morton's concept of hyperobjects, and historical-cultural analysis, thus enabling the identification of a continuous line of transformation in machine language from the Baroque era to the digital present. The novelty of the research lies in the development of a periodization of the evolution of machine language, which identifies its specific regimes (allegorical, intimate-playful, functional-deterministic, reflexively-hybrid) and links them to shifts in cultural-historical paradigms, rather than solely to technological progress. The research results demonstrate a sequential shift in linguistic regimes: the allegorical theatricality and rhetorical excess of Baroque automata give way to the intimate and playful language of Rococo machines, which in turn is replaced by the functional determinism and standardized “grammar of mechanisms” of Franz Reuleaux in the industrial age. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of the contemporary digital stage, where the language of artificial intelligence is characterized as reflexive-hybrid. It is shown that AI systems generate a fundamentally new type of interaction based on feedback loops (retroflection) and fusion processes, leading to the emergence of distributed epistemological structures and the blurring of traditional boundaries between natural and artificial intelligence. The study reveals that machines not only perform utilitarian functions but also actively participate in generating new regimes of knowledge production, acting as co-authors. The conclusions emphasize that modern technologies represent complex actor-network formations in which materiality acquires its own voice through the hybrid language of reflexive co-creation, necessitating the development of new ethical and philosophical frameworks for understanding human-machine interaction. 10.48417/technolang.2025.03.04 004.8:130.2 Machines Language of technology Object-oriented ontology Artificial intelligence Reflection Baroque Industrial age Hyperobjects Hybrid systems https://soctech.spbstu.ru/article/2025.20.4/ 43-63.pdf

RAR RUS 64-79 State Research Institute of Restoration Kotelnikov Pavel

Moscow, Russia

0009-0006-9834-630X Bauman Moscow State Technical University Kurakov Sergei

Moscow, Russia

Scientific Restoration of Polytechnic Heritage: The Case of the Franz Reuleaux Collection The preservation of scientific and technical heritage within museum settings is inseparable from restoration technologies. The conservation of polytechnic-type exhibits is in high demand, as evidenced by recent surveys of museum professionals and administrators who identify the restoration of archival and exhibition collections as their foremost priority. This article examines case studies in reconstructing damaged kinematic models from the Franz Reuleaux collection, systematically analyzing diverse approaches to restoring such polytechnic artifacts. The authors demonstrate how emerging additive technologies significantly expand traditional conservation capabilities as well as addressing the reproduction of museum copies, replicas, and tactile models through innovative methods. The restoration of Reuleaux’s museum objects necessitated intensive interdisciplinary collaboration among specialists spanning technical, humanistic, educational, and cultural domains. The project’s outcomes include the reintegration of storage-bound Reuleaux collection items – deemed unfit for display due to significant losses and poor condition – into the permanent exhibition of Bauman Moscow State Technical University Museum’s while providing new digital environment for promoting Reuleaux’ engineering heritage among museum visitors and specialists with varying levels of expertise and professional backgrounds. 10.48417/technolang.2025.03.05 7.025.4 Scientific Restoration Franz Reuleaux Reuleaux Collection Polytechnic Artifact Digital Model of Mechanism Additive Technologies in Restoration https://soctech.spbstu.ru/article/2025.20.5/ 64-79.pdf

RAR RUS 80-96 0000-0002-1793-9191 Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University Lobatyuk Victoria

St. Petersburg, Russia

Avantgarde Machines: On the Integration of Technology and Art The article proposes a theoretical conceptualization of an epistemological shift within avant-garde culture, wherein machine attains the status of not merely a theme, but a fundamental principle of artistic language. The methodological framework of the study is an original three-level model that reconstructs the logic of technology's transformation from an object of representation into a subject of form-creation and, ultimately, into a cognitive matrix. The level of “Technology-as-Muse” foregrounds the process of thematization and poeticization of the machine world, where technology functions as a new iconographic resource and a source of affective energy (e.g., Alexander Labas, Dziga Vertov). The level of “Technology-as-Co-author” reveals a paradigm of hybrid authorship, in which stage and pictorial constructions act as agents that actively constitute the aesthetic experience and impose upon the work an immanent logic of material and procedure (e.g., Vsevolod Meyerhold, Lyubov Popova, Sergei Eisenstein). At the level of “Technology-as-Model-of-Thought,” art transitions into onto-technical design, interiorizing engineering rationality as the basis of the creative act; artistic production converges with social engineering (e.g., Alexei Gastev) and biocosmic utopias, and the artwork is conceptualized as an operational protocol or blueprint for a new reality (e.g., Pavel Filonov, the ballet The Steel Step). The article demonstrates that the proposed model describes not a chronological sequence, but a logic of increasing complexity in the ways technical rationality is integrated into artistic consciousness, the result of which was a change in the ontological status of the artwork – from representing the world to actively constructing it. 10.48417/technolang.2025.03.06 130.2:62 Technology Avant-garde Artistic language Theater Constructivism Industrialization Biomechanics Language https://soctech.spbstu.ru/article/2025.20.6/ 80-96.pdf

RAR RUS 97-113 Shenzhen University Liang Shi

Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China

Electronic Fuji and Artificial Intelligence Creation: How is the Study of Machine Poetics Possible? This paper explores the question of how “machine poetics” is possible – that is, under what conditions can we consider machines to be capable of creation? More specifically, why can machine creation be regarded as meaningful in the same way as human creation? If human creations are seen as expressions of the human mind, are creations by machines, which cannot be proven to possess a mind, meaningless? The answer lies in demonstrating that there is theoretical and practical evidence showing that “originating from the human mind” is not a necessary or sufficient condition for a work to possess meaning. Drawing from the ancient Greek philosophical concept of “mimesis,” the paper argues that creation can exist independently of a true understanding of the world, rendering the role of the mind non-essential. Furthermore, by introducing the analogy of the ancient Chinese religious practice of “Fuji” (spirit writing), the paper demonstrates that machine creation shares striking structural and elemental similarities with spirit writing. Both are recognized as producing texts autonomously, without relying on the human mind. Therefore, the traditional acceptance of Fuji texts implies the validity of machine-generated creations. Similar to historical Fuji practices, however, machine creations cannot be divorced from their social context or the intentions of algorithm designers. They too face the tension between the “sacred” and the “profane.” This tension may present unresolved challenges in the artistic realm regarding autonomy, authorship, and value alignment. 10.48417/technolang.2025.03.07 1: 004.89 Machine poetics Fuji Artificial Intelligence Literary Theory https://soctech.spbstu.ru/article/2025.20.7/ 97-113.pdf

SCO RUS 114-124 Gustafsson Lars University of Southern Denmark Irons John

Odense, Denmark

The Machines - Poem and Comment As a poet and philosopher Lars Gustafsson (1936-2016) inhabited the worlds of Swedish literature as well as analytic philosophy of language. He was professor at the University of Texas and a writer of world-renown, with translations of his novels, short stories, essays, and poems in many languages. Among his collections of poetry the one revolving around the theme of machines gained special prominence. It is anchored by „The Machines“ which occasioned also an essay by Gustafsson in which he explores the background and philosophical implications of that poem. The poem is therefore here presented right along with a new translation of that essay by John Irons – who had already created one of three English translations of the poem. – When Gustafsson in 1966 took archetypical mechanical devices as a poetic cipher for human self-reflection at the intersection of technology and language, the machines of his day were conceived cybernetically: They were thought to be mechanisms with feedback that were driven and controlled by servomotoric electric power. The mecatronic fusion of the computer and the machine did not yet occupy a place of prominence in reflections about technology. This is one of the reasons why a fresh reading and new assessment of Gustafsson‘s texts is called for – how do they speak to contemporary readers? This publication is therefore accompanied by three philosophical responses. 10.48417/technolang.2025.03.08 Lars Gustafsson Human-machine relations Grammar Christopher Polhem https://soctech.spbstu.ru/article/2025.20.8/ 114-124.pdf

RAR RUS 125-133 Hochschule Darmstadt- University of Applied Science Gammel Stefan

Darmstadt, Germany

The Machines and Beyond This essay presents observations concerning the evolving relationship between humanity, technology, and nature through the lens of Lars Gustafsson's poetry. It traces a trajectory beginning with the poem “The Machines,” which portrays a mechanistic worldview where humans and machines are co-participants in a mechanical, puppet-like existence, offering a “peculiar consolation” in a shared lack of secrets. The text  then moves to “The Wright Brothers Visit Kitty Hawk,” identified as a crucial “bridge” that disrupts this mechanical unity by introducing a moral dimension. This poem introduces concepts of guilt and responsibility (against the backdrop of a “Gnostic darkness”), casting humans as moral agents who can use technology for good or evil. Finally, the article examines “Polhem’s Ore Hoist” as the “overcoming of the motive,” where the purely mechanical gives way to a triumphant organic life and a form of natural, instinctive knowledge. The essay concludes by contrasting Gustafsson’s poetic journey with contemporary transhumanist thought, which, it argues, focuses on a machine-centric view not out of a search for unity, but out of a desire to control and perfect an inadequate nature. 10.48417/technolang.2025.03.09 1:62 Gnosis Gnostic Darkness Transhumanism Human-Machine relations https://soctech.spbstu.ru/article/2025.20.9/ 125-133.pdf

RAR RUS 134-143 0000-0001-7564-110X Technical University of Darmstadt Liu Arthur Wei-Kang

Darmstadt, Germany

Remarks on Gustafsson’s ‘The Machines’ – Hermeneutics of Machines This paper offers some remarks on Lars Gustafsson’s poem ‘The Machines’ and its accompanying commentary from a critical hermeneutic point of view. Gustafsson seems to argue that machines acquire meaning only when decontextualized since they ‘stand out’, are ‘denaturalised’. Only then, they become an object of reflection and are thus in need of an interpretation. Furthermore, he seems to extend a cybernetic analogy to language, arguing that grammar is a generative machine that produces language. Through close reading, this paper reconstructs four theses from Gustafsson’s work: the acquired meaning of machines, the cybernetic human, grammar as a machine, and linguistic transparency. It then interrogates these theses through the lens of philosophical hermeneutics and argues that Gustafsson’s prioritisation of syntax offers a reductive view of both machines and language. By reintroducing the pragmatic and semantic dimensions, the paper contends that understanding a machine is not merely a syntactic operation but a hermeneutic practice similar to interpreting a text, where parts and whole inform each other given a specific context. The paper concludes that while Gustafsson’s mechanized worldview fruitfully opens ways of self-reflection, it risks an Engführung, a narrowing of our relation to the world and ourselves – that a thorough hermeneutic stance helps to avoid. 10.48417/technolang.2025.03.10 1: 801.7: 62 Syntax Pragmatics Semantics Hermeneutics Philosophy of Technology Cybernetics https://soctech.spbstu.ru/article/2025.20.10/ 134-143.pdf

RAR RUS 144-150 University of Hamburg Vida Karina Language After the Human –A Distant Echo to Lars Gustafsson‘s ‘The Machines’ This essay explores the shifting relation between human language and machine-generated text in the age of generative artificial intelligence. Drawing on Lars Gustafsson’s notion of the “speechless machine” and Edward Morgan Forster’s prescient vision in The Machine Stops, it traces the transformation of machines from monumental, alien artifacts into intimate, linguistic counterparts embedded in everyday life. Yet their “speech” raises questions: Can machines truly speak when they lack need, will, and lived experience? What emerges is not language as expression, but probability condensed into form – text without provenance, without intention. Contrasted with Maria Montessori’s insight that language forms the child as a being-in-relation, machine language appears as communication without necessity, an answer without a question. At stake is not only authorship, but the erosion of resonance: when writing becomes generation, meaning risks dissolving into noise. Against this backdrop, the value of human writing re-emerges – not as efficient production, but as intentional, ethical, and relational practice. The essay argues that in the dialogue with machines, humans must reclaim responsibility: to decide what counts as speech, what carries meaning, and how language continues to shape a shared world. 10.48417/technolang.2025.03.11 1: 004.8 Generative AI Language Authorship Human-Machine Relation Ethics of Writing https://soctech.spbstu.ru/article/2025.20.11/ 144-150.pdf

RAR RUS 152-180 0009-0008-5604-165X Ho Chi Minh University of Banking Nguyen Quang Nhat

HCMC, Vietnam

Ho Chi Minh University of Banking Nguyen Ngoc Phuong Dung

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Measuring Digital Competence for EFL Education in Vietnam With the rapid digital transformation in higher education, assessing the digital competence of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) lecturers has become increasingly vital in Vietnam. Building on national initiatives such as the National Digital Transformation Program (2020–2025) and the National Foreign Language Project 2020, this study investigates how lecturers integrate digital tools into language teaching in online and hybrid environments. Using a Vietnamese-adapted version of the DigiCompEdu framework, the research surveyed 200 EFL instructors across seven universities in Ho Chi Minh City, combining quantitative self-assessment with qualitative case-based validation. Findings reveal that lecturers demonstrate moderate competence in “Professional Engagement” and “Teaching and Learning,” but significant weaknesses remain in “Assessment” and “Empowering Learners.” Those holding formal ICT certifications consistently outperformed non-certified counterparts, with statistical analysis confirming a large effect size. Correlations among competence areas suggest that professional engagement and access to digital resources strongly predict effective teaching practices. Qualitative data highlight the transformative use of language-specific technologies—such as AI-driven pronunciation tools, mobile-based platforms, and virtual reality applications—in fostering learner autonomy and improving pragmatic competence. However, infrastructural constraints, uneven professional development opportunities, and reliance on self-assessment limit the uniform adoption of digital tools across institutions. The study concludes that targeted technology-enhanced continuous professional development (TCPD) programs, mandatory ICT certification, and infrastructure investment are crucial for enhancing lecturers’ digital competence. By adapting the DigiCompEdu framework to the Vietnamese context, the research contributes to global discourse on digital education while offering actionable recommendations for policymakers and universities. Ultimately, the study underscores the need for context-sensitive strategies to integrate technology into language pedagogy, ensuring that Vietnamese EFL lecturers are equipped to meet the demands of 21st-century language education. 10.48417/technolang.2025.03.12 378.12: 004 Digital competence EFL Online learning DigiCompEdu framework Vietnam https://soctech.spbstu.ru/article/2025.20.12/ 152-180.pdf

RAR RUS 181-204 San Francisco Waldorf High School Perlman Daniel

San Francisco, United States

Material Agency, 4E Cognition, and Kant’s Invisible Printing press: Regarding Foucault’s Trip to Iran In order to help dispel a stubborn Enlightenment myth that continues to warp understandings of political speech, this analysis draws on developments in theories of “4E” cognition (theories of the embodied, embedded, extended, and enacted mind). Here I treat the ideal Kantian figure of the individual political actor who exercises public reason, the famous “scholar” of “What Is Enlightenment?”, as a myth that has already in effect decomposed from the inside. It has been undermined by academic developments across fields including Foucauldian genealogy in the humanities, social-constructivist philosophy of science, and 4E theories of mind in cognitive science. It has also been undermined in common practice by complications of authorship, literacy, and publicity in current digital media. Yet its theoretical trouble persists as the Kantian model remains a dominant conception of political speech, and subsequently of freedom and reason. I use the example of Foucault’s engagement with the Iranian revolution, much-critiqued, to show how the persistence of this myth precipitates a major theoretical obstacle for a project committed to overcoming the transcendental themes of Kant, such that they re-emerge through an idealization of a spiritual dimension of the revolution. This episode indicates that Foucauldian genealogy did not complete its rejection of Kantian transcendental idealism, and more specifically that the issue lies in its concept of subjectivity. Introducing Andrew Pickering’s theory of the mangle, from his work in philosophy of science, in conjunction with 4E theories of cognition provides a supplement to genealogy that allows it better to address the still-clinging root of the Enlightenment myth of the ideal actor, namely Kant’s own theory of cognition, particularly in its relationship to Newtonian physics and the basic conception of reason as “internal.” The introduction of these supplementary theoretical elements can help conceive political speech beyond outmoded strictures –possibly helping to make it newly effective. 10.48417/technolang.2025.03.13 1: 316.422.4 Material agency 4E Cognition Embodied cognition Material engagement theory Foucault Iran Printing press https://soctech.spbstu.ru/article/2025.20.13/ 181-204.pdf