The research network Kommunikationstechniken im Wandel / Changing Communication Techniques (https://ktiw.hypotheses.org) connects scholars from different disciplines researching forms of alternative communication techniques in the Late Medieval or Early Modern era (c. 1300–1800). Today's research on the history of pre-modern communication focuses mainly on the invention and socio-economic impact of printing as well as on the role of media (e.g. letters, books, pamphlets). In contrast, this research network asks how pre-modern societies, groups, or individuals strategically harnessed various resources beyond the conventional techniques – for example their own bodies, materials, objects and instruments, pictures or graphic, verbal, acoustic and visual modes – to achieve specific communicative goals.
A differentiated communication repertoire has always been associated with an easier way of coping with life as well as a considerable increase in one's own power to act in certain situations. Alternative communication techniques, for example, create exclusivity or inclusivity, confirm, or change social hierarchies and frameworks, contribute to the technicization and economization of communication processes, or astonish and entertain an audience. Developments and optimizations of communication techniques reflect creative problem-solving strategies, as well as the capacity of abstraction, pattern recognition, and the ability to design complex systems. On a broader level, communication techniques provide an important insight into the sensory worlds of the past and into the history of linguistics.
These communication techniques include, for example:
- Cryptography and secret languages
- Steganography
- Stenography
- Ideo-, logo- and pictography
- Semaphores and telegraphy
- Sign language
- Gesture and mimic
- Literacy of people with visual and hearing impairment
- Symbols
- Language puzzles
- Allusions
- Writing and paper technologies
We are happy to announce our programme for the 2023 Spring Workshop.