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SUMMARY
The Phonograph as a“speaking machine”
:
Rethinking on the history of sound recording and reproduction technology
AKIYOSHI Yasuharu
This study will examine the history of the first sound recording technology̶the“phonograph,”a
device invented in 1877 by Thomas Alva Edison̶and reconsider it as a“speaking machine.”Some
previous studies in the domain of media theory have attempted to locate sound recording technology
within the history of the body. Friedrich Kittler, who argues that the invention of the phonograph was
the result of the mechanization of the human mind, traces the origin of the phonograph’s mechanism
to a“dictating machine.”Additionally, Jonathan Sterne discusses the transformation of the auditory
field by considering phonographs and other sound media as“hearing machines.”
These studies played a significant role in developing the media theory of Marshal McLuhan, who
discussed technological media as“an extension of the central nervous system.”However, these
perceptions of the phonograph as a“dictating machine”or“hearing machine”may serve to describe
the genealogy of the“indenting”or“recording”sounds, but not of the“reproduction”or“playing
back”of sounds. Even in the aforementioned studies, the reason Edison invented the phonograph as a
sound reproduction technology is unclear. In this study, I reconsider the prehistory of sound recording
technology by tracing its history back to speaking machines and vocal synthesizers, which were
invented before Edison’
s phonograph.