Linguistic Futuring

Language is the thought-structuring interface between humans and their world. It represents and forms relationships with all living and non-living systems. Language produces, preserves and reproduces worldviews, frames perceptions and creates differentiations. It enables the communication of experiences, knowledges and ideas, and therefore defines how humans progress together. The words of a language are creations that emerge from human interactions and are most often not a result of intentional design activities, but they could be. Considering the role of language for current mental path dependencies, transformation design needs to address words and the worldviews they represent. Linguistic futuring could be a systematic approach to navigate this by opening up imagination spaces through the intentional proposition and negotiation of words and meanings. Though, these propositions are not just a reframing of present conditions, they aim to materialize futures and therefore create space for anticipation and reflection before something emerges. Linguistic futuring thereby enables to change the preconception out of which narrative, structural and material realities emerge. Since language frames our space of perception, it also conditions our space of imagination. This conditioning can be creatively navigated through the following five approaches. The removal of existing words can be proposed to get rid of certain perceptions. To further differentiate, new words can be added by either combining existing words or inventing completely new ones. Furthermore, the meaning of existing words can be changed what shapes how we make sense of the world. Moreover, the form of existing words can be adapted, such as by transitioning from nouns to verbs, what creates a shift from a static to a processual worldview. Lastly, words that are unacknowledged in a certain language, but exist in other contexts, can be introduced. These five combinable approaches to structure linguistic futuring aim to make alternative realities thinkable and discussable, something that is often not possible within existing vocabularies.

Jan 30, 2025