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シンポジウム第 30 回年次大会
JASEC 研究フォーラム―シンポジウム「ICT (Information and Communication Technology)
and English Communication」
モデレーター：BULLSMITH, Christofer（Atomi University）
Information and Communication Technology includes the tools used to process,send, and receive information. Modern ICT encompasses radio, television, telephones,
and digital devices, in particular the ones which communicate with each other orconnect to the internet.
The pace of change in ICT has been remarkable. Let me use a couple of points in
my lifetime by way of illustration.
First, it’s 1996. I’m in my last year as an undergraduate. One telephone perhousehold is the accepted norm. I still haven’t seen a cellphone in real life. Though myhome phone is now “wireless”, habit keeps me sitting at the kitchen counter while Italk. HoTMaiL has just launched and tech-savvy people are starting to talk about
email addresses, though the university’s small monochrome Macintosh computers are
for word processing not networked communication. I sometimes walk down to my local
video rental store and come home with a VHS (DVDs are still unknown). On thecomputing front, there is widespread shock when a cabinet-sized specialized computer
manages to sometimes beat a human champion at chess (Deep Blue versus GarryKasparov).
Now, jump forward to 2016. Smartphones are so commonplace that some services,
both public and commercial, are becoming difficult to access without one (the “digitaldivide” has become a very immediate social issue). My old primary school has smart
boards for the teachers and tablets for the students, and communicates with parents
only through social media apps. The UN General Assembly has passed a number ofresolutions suggesting that internet access is a human right1. I exercise that right byusing my payment and GPS-equipped phone to have Uber Eats deliver a picnic to mein the park. As I wait, I video chat with family half the globe away and browse
The UN Human Rights Council has now adopted five resolutions on “the promotion, protectionand enjoyment of human rights on the Internet, starting in 2012 and with the latest in 2021
during the COVID-19 pandemic. See United Nations (2021) for the full text.

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high-definition video skateboarding tutorials on YouTube, while my watch tracks myheart rate and walking speed. Phrases like “deep learning” and “big data” are regularlyin the news and it is generally accepted that ICT systems can now outperform humans
in many complex but constrained fields, including for example language processing,computer vision, and games; and even less constrained tasks (like driving a car on
public roads or sustaining a conversation) seem tantalizingly close.
So, assuming my experience is broadly representative at least within thedeveloped world, in about 20 years ICT developed from something used occasionallyand consciously for very limited tasks, to something that enables and conditions nearly
every aspect of our lives, and in some ways is starting to outrun us.
In this symposium, we examine some of these developments and consider theirimplications for communication in general and English communication in particular.
Our first panellist discusses a case study of using ICT to facilitate communicationand solve an ongoing problem for local residents. The success could as well, I think, bepresented as a case study of how important communication with stakeholders is inorder to make sure that the ICT-mediated response does actually solve the problem.
We need not so much the the application of ICT as the appropriate application of ICT.
Our second panellist address the questions of what jobs will remain going forward
for English-language journalists and editors in Japan. Translation from English toJapanese and vice versa is one of those constrained tasks that ICT systems canperform ever more capably, so insofar as English-language journalists and editors inJapan were translators, they look apt to lose their jobs to automation.
Our third panellist discusses the technical advances in natural language
processing and “big data” translation model training that underwrite these massive
improvements in translation, grammar correction, and chatbots.
As our final panellist, I discuss ICT and language learning, including successes
and failures, and how ICT is changing how we learn, what we ought to learn, and even
whether we should bother learning languages at all.
（参考文献）
United Nations. (2021). Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political,

economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development. HumanRights Documents.
https://ap.ohchr.org/documents/dpage_e.aspx?si=A/HRC/47/L.22