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.
2 thoughts on “Language Connects Us”
Hi Ceili,
I am so delighted that you enjoyed both of these texts. Honestly, they both make me pretty emotional (but I’m a crier, so that isn’t too hard for any piece of media to accomplish).
I think that you’re absolutely right to focus on metaphor in your discussion of “Darmok.” One of the lines that always stands out to me is when the crew is talking about how deeply metaphoric the Tamarian language is. They seemed surprised by this, which is interesting, because it goes to show how we don’t recognize the conceptual metaphors that we use as metaphors at all. In addition, what do you think their system of metaphors reveals about their society? For example, the episodes state that the Tamarian’s don’t have a sense of individual self. How might that relate to their linguistic system?
Arrival does make reference to the Saphir-Whorf hypothesis (fun fact: one of the characters in TNG is named Whorf, afortuitous coincidence), though the strong version of that theory has been discredited. Instead of thinking about linguistic systems as affecting cognitive systems, cognitive linguists see them as inseparable: they are all part of the same system. And this system is also deeply embodied and culturally embedded.
Jessica Hautsch
Hey Ceili,
After reading your blog post I was a bit confused about arrival. I honestly thought that the heptapods coming into earth was before her daughter was born, but you made a good point about saying that it was helping her cope with her lost. I don’t really think either of us are wrong or right, it just depends on how we viewed the movie. That what I really liked about this, that at the end I really had to sit myself down and really think what I just watched. I also really liked your example of how in texting we can miscommunicate with each other. Which is why I like calling more than texting for that reason.
Glynis
gcoito