Talking to Extraordinary Objects: Folktales Offer Analogies for Interacting with Technology

TL;DR

This paper explores how folktales' analogies of talking to extraordinary objects can inspire more human-like interactions with technology, decoupling speech from anthropomorphism.

Contribution

It introduces folktale-based analogies as a novel perspective for designing speech and language interactions with technology.

Findings

Folktales depict diverse extraordinary objects that talk without being human.

Language and intelligence are not necessarily linked to humanness in folktales.

Folktale analogies can inspire new approaches to human-technology interaction.

Abstract

Speech and language are valuable for interacting with technology. It would be ideal to be able to decouple their use from anthropomorphization, which has recently met an important moment of reckoning. In the world of folktales, language is everywhere and talking to extraordinary objects is not unusual. This overview presents examples of the analogies that folktales offer. Extraordinary objects in folktales are diverse and also memorable. Language capacity and intelligence are not always connected to humanness. Consideration of folktales can offer inspiration and insight for using speech and language for interacting with technology.