On analytical 'engines', data 'architectures' and software 'engineers': Metaphoric aspects of the development of computer terminology.

摘要

This essay examines the development of terminology in the computer field. Using textual analysis and historical comparison of the use of terminology at different points in time, the study focuses on the role of metaphor in the development of computer terminology, focusing on the post-war years up to the early 1970s.; Drawing on work on the non-literary use of metaphor by Max Black, Donald Schon and others, this essay suggests that thinking about computers has often reverted to the initial use of metaphors. It seeks to demonstrate how the evolution of concepts used in thinking about computers initially drew on and extended a series of metaphors from everyday life (e.g., building, biology, mechanical devices, fluids, etc.). The study includes in-depth analysis of the use, in the computer field, of several everyday terms (e.g., machine, digital, reading, language). The study shows how these early terms were extended in a systematic way so that later, metaphorically inspired uses of terms such as architecture and engineering were consistently and coherently tied to the earlier metaphoric uses. In the course of their new use, the words themselves became accepted as having new, additional meanings.; The work seeks to extend the approach of the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) by focusing on language as one aspect of the "seamless web" of technological change. The study makes extensive use of four sources: Dictionaries and Glossaries of Terms issued at various points in the history of computing; other primary sources such as articles, patent applications and other documents written during the early history of computing; secondary analytical accounts by participants; and secondary analytical accounts by historians and other writers.; Last, the essay seeks to show how the accepted but metaphoric use of some terms (such as "maintenance" and "engineering") has affected professional practices within the computer software field.