This week we watched the film “Arrival” and an episode of “Star Trek: The Next Generation”. I was pleasantly surprised by both of these media. I had seen “Arrival” before but It was really enjoyable watching it again especially watching it through a lens of linguistics. The episode of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” was also so good and honestly made me feel a bit emotional.
The first one I want to talk about is the episode of Star Trek titled “Darmok”. As this episode progressed I realized how heavily it focused on conceptual metaphors. In the episode Picard is taken by Dathon to a different planet. While watching the episode I did think the intentions of Dathon and the Tamarians were bad. I think this is because as a viewer I truly had no idea what Dathon was saying and what it meant. The same goes for the federation crew. Before the crew realizes that Tamarians speak in metaphors they felt threatened by them. One scene that really stuck out to me in this episode was when Deanna Troi is discussing whether or not the Tarmarians have ill intentions and she emphasizes to the crew before they take any action that one word misunderstood could be the cause of unnecessary turmoil and war. This really stuck out to me because it reminded me of the way that sometimes when you text someone they pick up on an attitude and misinterpret your message. This causes unnecessary turmoil all because of a miscommunication. This episode also made me think about how we use metaphors in our day to day life. Furthermore it made me think about how confusing it must be to some people when they don’t know the conceptual frame in which someone is using. For example, before I read Jekyll and Hyde I never understood what people meant when they would describe someone as Jekyll and Hyde. The same goes for The Federation not knowing the context of the Tamarians metaphors.
“Arrival” is a fantastic film that always makes me feel a little crazy. Overall this film says a lot about how language constructs communication. One scene that definitely stuck out to me was when Louise and Ian were talking about Sapir-Work theory. It’s all about how the language you speak affects your whole life. At first I didn’t necessarily understand how this was true but after watching the movie I realized that just as the Heptapods language is written circularly they think circularly. They don’t think about endings or beginnings, they think about the big picture. As Louise works with them and learns the language she will begin to think the same which helps her in coping with what will be the eventual loss of her daughter. This film is sad when you realize she knows she will lose her daughter but when understanding that that alien language will actually help Louise to realize death isn’t the end of the journey the movie is beautiful.