How do the posthumans of the 21st century understand written discourse?

Abstract

According to critical posthumanism, the human being is constituted in relation and mutual influence with other animals and machines. Through a severe criticism of humanism, the centre of which has been a prototypical human being, critical posthumanism takes a stance against any dualism and declares the interpenetration between humans, animals and technology. As the technological advancements of the last decades have been dramatic, it is reasonable to ask how the posthumanist perspective can affect the interpretation of a faculty traditionally considered as human par excellence: language. This article is focused on written discourse comprehension and poses the following question: how do the posthumans of the 21st century understand discourse? The current highly digitalised context is presented, along with the challenges it poses for reading comprehension, from a posthumanist perspective. The literature review includes a series of empirical findings, which, interpreted in the light of critical posthumanism, allow for a first characterisation of what written discourse comprehension means nowadays. This issue brings forth a series of educational implications that are highly relevant for current and future practices; these are discussed in the final section of the article.