Being cyborg and the language I speak...

What is (a) cyborg rhetoric? As the good cyborg-in-training I am I turned to some virtual help to get me started on answering this question. According to Dictionary.com and its virtual reference of Random House Dictionary (2009), a “cyborg” is “a person whose physiological functioning is aided by or dependent upon a mechanical or electronic device.” I’m certain that this definition refers to a person whose life depends on some kind of machine (e.g. a pacemaker, hearing aid, etc.) or something artificial like my eyeglasses, but I would argue that this definition, especially today, reaches further into our lives. I would have to be the first to admit that much of my well-being, or livelihood, relies heavily on something electronic or some artificial intelligence. My life would be unrecognizably different without my home computer, my microwave oven, and my cell phone. Even the little navigation device that often sends me in circles has changed my life—for the better, I don’t know yet? In this way, I am already a cyborg. Maybe one that clings to remnants of what it was like before, but still helplessly drawn to the technological offerings of what being cyborg is about. If I am cyborg, then rhetoric is the way I communicate, or try to communicate. Not just the words coming out of my mouth, but the ways I communicate as a cyborg. My rhetoric is the computerization of this journal entry turned “blog.” My rhetoric is the response paper I printed out an hour ago. My rhetoric is the “Good morning” text I sent earlier today. My rhetoric is the final paper and presentation I will turn in at the end of the quarter. If I am the cyborg I think I am, then my rhetoric is everything that persuades others and myself that I exist, that I have evolved—no, that I am evolving still.