From the complex city-planning game SimCity to the virtual therapist Eliza: how computational processes open possibilities for understanding and creating digital media. What matters in understanding digital media? Is looking at the external appearance and audience experience of software enough—or should we look further? In Expressive Processing, Noah Wardrip-Fruin argues that understanding what goes on beneath the surface, the computational processes that make digital media function, is essential. Wardrip-Fruin looks at “expressive processing” by examining specific works of digital media ranging from the simulated therapist Eliza to the complex city-planning game SimCity. Digital media, he contends, offer particularly intelligible examples of things we need to understand about software in general; if we understand, for instance, the capabilities and histories of artificial intelligence techniques in the context of a computer game, we can use that understanding to judge the use of similar techniques in such higher-stakes social contexts as surveillance.

A four-volume reference comprising approximately seven hundred alphabetically ordered entries, the IEL provides detailed and up-to-date information on all branches of linguistics. The IEL encompasses the full range of the contemporary field of linguistics, including historical, comparative, formal, mathematical, functional, and philosophical linguistics. It gives special attention to interrelations within branches of linguistics and to relations of linguistics with other disciplines, and covers areas of intersection with the social and behavioral sciences, as well as interdisciplinary work in language and literatures, mathematical linguistics, computational linguistics, and applied linguistics. Providing abundant examples with literal glosses and English translations, the IEL offers extensive coverage of languages and language families, from English and Japanese to Hittite and Yoruba. Bringing together the latest information on the diverse subject matters of linguistics, and including a network of cross references, this encyclopedia is an invaluable resource.

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