Day: July 25, 2022

The film Arrival and the tv episode “Darmok” in Star Trek: The Next Generation acknowledge the idea of linguistics. It exhibits how it affects our cognitive perception, or rather how it is part of our cognitive perception. Language influences how we understand who and what is around us.

Star Trek: The Next Generation

In Module 2, we briefly discussed embedded cognition, which acknowledges our interaction with the environment as a part of our cognition. The context within our physical and social environments are considered an important piece of our cognition. Embedded cognition goes hand in hand with this episode.

In one scene, Dr. Crusher, Data, Riker, and Deanna are seated together. Data and Deanna explain that the Tamarians communicate through imagery, specifically imagery of their mythological history. Deanna mentions how it’s like saying, “Juliet on her balcony”, to which Dr. Crusher adds, “An image of romance.” Riker mentions the possibility of being able to communicate with them with this information. However, it’s not the case. Dr. Crusher says, “If I didn’t know who Juliet was, or what she was doing on that balcony, the image alone wouldn’t have any meaning.” Essentially, if someone didn’t know the story of Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare, they wouldn’t know the context of “Juliet on her balcony”, and therefore no emotions or ideas would be evoked. This is the issue the crew has with the Tamarians. They have trouble depicting the Tamarians’ imagery because they don’t know their mythological history. Embedded cognition takes on a large role here. Additionally, the discussion of meaning in the VoiceThread is active in this scene. The idea of the meanings we get from language being influenced by interactions and experiences is demonstrated. The Tamarian language would produce more meaning to the crew if they experienced the same history. That is why Picard reads a Greek mythology book at the end of the episode- to connect his personal mythology history with other species’ and produce meaning. This is like Simulation Theory in Module 3, which is when you can simulate others’ feelings in a situation based on your own experiences.

Arrival

This movie reveals how the body, language, and cognition play a role together. There is a scene when Louise writes her name on a whiteboard and points to herself saying, “Louise. I am Lousie.” She was attempting to teach the heptapods her name, but to no avail. She then risks her safety and removes her hazmat suit. She says, “They need to see me.” She touches the screen with her hand, to which a heptapod copies. She says, “Now that’s a proper introduction.” Ian ends up repeating her actions, removing the hazmat suit and saying his name while it’s written on the whiteboard. The heptapods then share their names in their written language. Louise recognizes that she must use her body to fully express herself and connect with the heptapods. According to the VoiceThread, cognitive linguistics see language as “embedded in the… interactions with the world.” Louise and the heptapod placing their hands on the screen allow them to truly connect for the first time through their physical interactions, and therefore allows the heptapod to understand her intentions and what she means. Staying in the hazmat suit creates a disconnect, as it is more of a scientific observation between the humans and heptapods rather than a true connection.

Conclusion

Star Trek: The Next Generation and Arrival both share the importance of bodily experiences and interactions with the environment in order to gain an understanding within language.

In the movie Arrival, I think I saw many overlaps in things we spoke about in class. With Aliens coming down to earth in a pack of twelve there are many issues at play with the main focus of Arrival being communicating with them. One thing is how “cognitive linguistics focuses on the importance of context”, this was a point of interest within the film because a word like weapon could easily be misconstrued as the word tool. When you are developing a basis of communication the specifics are yet to be finely tuned. I think this also has to do with frameshifting in one way or another. Going on the same example, weapon partnered with the word gift is not interpreted in the same manner as the other usage, use weapon. They also mention the Sapir Whorf Hypothesis which was a key point in our lesson, they define it as saying “the language you speak determines how you think, it affects how you see everything” which is accurate to what we learned in class. The point of noting this Hypothesis is brought to mind in the following scene where she references the problems of framing communication around a board game, making everything into a win-lose scenario, effectively making everything more dangerous. https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fs.studiobinder.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2010%2F03%2FArrival-Video-Essay-How-to-Balance-Fear-and-Intrigue-WP.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.studiobinder.com%2Fblog%2Farrival-movie-analysis%2F&tbnid=lYI_AyqcijQLKM&vet=12ahUKEwiqpvvFkJX5AhWon3IEHSaWDs0QMygFegUIARDoAQ..i&docid=ZRtX6nyNPLBzzM&w=1920&h=1080&q=arrival&ved=2ahUKEwiqpvvFkJX5AhWon3IEHSaWDs0QMygFegUIARDoAQ
In the episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation we watched has much more to do with conceptual metaphors. In this episode, the gang’s trip is met with a group of people who, up till now have never been able to be spoken to. They attempt interaction and the captain is transported to their planet. Though I can’t concede to knowing entirely what was happening in that episode, by the end the Leader of the federations ship, understands that the other race’s language is wholly based on metaphors and imagery. They communicate wholly through making specifics general. This is clearly brewed in the concept of conceptual metaphor, which is defined as, “Helping us make what is abstract, concrete.” though during this episode it appears to have more of the opposite effect. What assisted me to understand the idea of their language better is their comparison of Romeo and Juliet. “The Tamarian Ego Structure may not allow what we think of as self-identity. Their ability to abstract is highly unusual. They seem to communicate through narrative imagery, a reference to individuals and places that appear in their mythos. It is as if I were to say to you, Juliet on her balcony..” This helps the audience to get a handle on what our two main characters of the episode are saying… yes. But also helps you build a better idea of how the language fundamentally works. We see the understanding most clearly at play, during which the captain has figured out the idea behind some of the phrases he has been repeating the entire episode. Eventually concluding it was about two people coming together. Not simply about those two people at the end of the day. Clearly referencing their own groups within this deep sorry of extended metaphor.https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fntvb.tmsimg.com%2Fassets%2Fp7896684_b_h8_aa.jpg%3Fw%3D1280%26h%3D720&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tvinsider.com%2Fshow%2Fstar-trek-the-next-generation%2F&tbnid=ByrBEGP2vK4YYM&vet=12ahUKEwiqp8qwkJX5AhX3r3IEHbvTDCkQMygTegUIARCIAg..i&docid=2xooLp0DpzvIDM&w=1280&h=720&q=star%20trek%20the%20next%20generation&ved=2ahUKEwiqp8qwkJX5AhX3r3IEHbvTDCkQMygTegUIARCIAg

In this week’s module, the movie Arrival, and Star Trek episode “Darmok” demonstrated different aspects of cognitive linguistics through the characters and their interactions with other life forms. In the Star Trek episode, there is a scene where Captain Picard and the Tamarian Captain spend a night on the planet at a healthy distance from one another (11:29). We have seen previously that Picard is not able to understand the language of the Tamarian when they first meet during the day, creating a barrier between them. It seems that a common theme throughout the episode was fear, and how fear due to lack of understanding can lead to violence. Picard watches the Tamarian build a fire and place objects of some sort arround the fire before turning over to go to sleep. Picard stays awake freezing, because he does not trust this foreign being, and the absence of trust stems from the fact that he can’t put words or meaning behind the action of the Tamarian. He doesn’t know if the Tamarian is going to be peaceful, or if he will try to harm him in the night when he finally goes to sleep. The Tamarian can sense that Picard is cold and untrusting, so he offers him a torch of fire to keep warm in the night saying “Temba with arms wide”.

Picard is still unable to understand exactly what that phrase means, but with more context, in this instant the Tamarian is performing a physical act to demonstrate his actions, which allows Picard to realize that he means no harm. I think we can see how important body language is here and how it is effective in connecting the bridge between Picard and the Tamarian when the spoken language is not possible right away (this will allow actions to be connected to words, which will help when trying to understand a language). Also, Picard can use past experience to help him come to conclusions about the Tamarian’s stance towards him and whether it is good or bad. In war, if someone is offering you help instead of attacking you, that is a sign that they probably don’t want to be your enemy. Social queues within culture gain meaning, and can be used to make future decisions. 

Throughout the episode, the Tamarian holds up the two knife like weapon in the air towards Captain Picard, at one point he even throws one at the Captain. Picard sees these particular actions as “aggressive” movements and throws the weapon back at the Tamarian saying “I don’t want to fight you”. Picard fears for what may happen if they begin to engage in battle, possibly starting a war between the two species. In this scenario Picard is using a cognitive frame that is geared for foreign conflict. As I mentioned earlier, he is using past experience to make decisions, but each scenario is unique and the full story had not been revealed yet due to the language barrier. The next day they are on the planet together, they both hear a noise of an animal of some sort that is closing in on them (22:03). Picard sees how the Tamarian goes on the offensive towards where the noise is coming from and realizes the creature is upon them. Frame shifting occurs here, because new information has now been provided to Captain Picard, which changes the context of his situation. Picard deducts that the enemy is actually this creature, and that the reason the Tamarian kept trying to give him the knife was so that they could fight it together. Also, when the Tamarian kept raising the weapons in the air the day before he was trying to rally Picard to join his fight. The introduction of the creature is what Picard needed to piece together why the Tamarian wanted to meet with him in the first place. 

In the film Arrival, we see similar themes of cognitive dissonance between the humans at the Heptapods. Here, their conceptual/linguistic system is not through metaphors of spoken language, but symbol writing. The different designs within the circles that the Heptapods create represent different objects or ideas, that the human may have written words for. Louise is able to piece together their language by the mirrored action of the Heptapods.

She sees that they use symbols so she decides to adopt their method of written communication and uses a white board. Louise and Ian introduce themselves at the wall and take off their gear so the aliens can see them. Louise points to the aliens and says “you, who are you?” and they give their names with the circle symbols (47:45). Throughout the film she continues this visual type of communication, as we see later on she ha the phrase “Ian walking” on the white board, while having Ian walk in front of them. They respond with their own symbol showing how they are internalizing what they are seeing. Again we see the physical body playing an important role in communication, as Ian is being used to demonstrate an action, not to mention the Heptapods use their physical body to create the symbols on the wall. 

Another scene I found to be interesting was when the Heptapod write a symbol that says “offer weapon”(1:06:58), or what the human interpret it to mean. The problem here is that as discussed in the lecture, “meaning is not static, but dynamically changing…it is embedded in social interactions, physical environments, and bodily experiences”. Louise even points out that “they are using a word they don’t fully understand. We don’t know if they know the difference between a weapon and a tool, our language like our culture is messy and sometimes one can be both”. A word can be misconstrued if there isn’t a clear definition, or if there are a couple of different ways to express the same thing. Also, the humans have no previous knowledge of what life and culture is like for the Heptapods, which may leave them with gaps in understanding how the Heptapods are processing information.