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.
6 thoughts on “Overcoming Language Barriers”
Hi Sarah,
I really love your discussion about frame shifting as it relates to the interactions between Picard and Dathon in “Darmok.” You make a really excellent point that they can only begin to communicate once they are operating within the same congitive frame. This also raises interesting question about the role of body language and social cues that you mentioned. They become a meaningful part of communication between Picard and Dathon—but only once they are structured through a shared cognitive frame. For example, in the gif you included, Picard sees the way that Dathon is holding the daggers, but when he is operating under the “violent conflict” frame he perceives it as aggressive, even though it isn’t. Once they share a cognitive frame, though, Picard still can’t understand Dathon’s language, but he can better read his body and understand his intentions.
Great job, too, in discussing Arrival. I am especially interested in your last point about their use of the word “weapon” even though they don’t fully understand the messiness of what that term might mean. This reminds me of the part in the film where they are talking about the fact that the Chinese scientists and military used games, specially mahjong, which shaped the conceptual metaphors that the heptapod used to communicate with them. How did that game shape their communication? How might it have been different if they’d used a cooperative rather than competitive game?
Jessica Hautsch
I think that the Chinese using a game to communicate with the Heptapods encouraged the idea of opposition. They were working against each other, the idea of winning in mind. Even though they were just playing a game, because it was their only way of communicating it could translate in a more real way, putting a strain on their relationship. Also I noticed that when General Shang released a statement of why he was withdrawing his scientists from the ships, he stated that the message they received from the Heptapods was “use weapon”, which slightly differs from the message the Americans received (“offer weapon”). We know that the Americans took a more cooperative approach to communicating with the Heptapods, the language that the Heptapods used seemed less affirmative (demanding) and more suggestive.
Sarah Murphy
Hi Sarah,
Yes, I think this is right. It reminds me of some of what Lakoff and Johnston have said about, for example, the framing of academic discourse as ARGUMENT IS WAR. That conceptual metaphor entails the frame of conflict. But what if we use a conceptual metaphor like ARGUMENT IS DANCE. That would radically alter how we think about argumentation, because it would be framed not in terms of conflict, but cooperation.
Jessica Hautsch
Hi Sarah!
I love how you interpreted the lack of trust coming from a lack of communication is actually amazingly accurate to how humans behave in real life. Many Europeans thought native people of far-off lands were all idiotic and their language was much more primitive and simplistic than theirs, feeling as though their language was worth less than theirs, so why would they bother learning it? Obviously the people in both media this week were dedicated to learning about another language, but if they were like the Chinese and only decided to learn the surface-level language of the aliens, there would have been catastrophic outcomes.
I also love how you brought up how messy language can be, especially the colloquial and slang language we use on a regular basis.
snaraujo
Hi Sarah! I agree that the main theme for this Star Trek episode was that fear due to lack of understanding can lead to violence. It is true. We even see the Star Trek crew spaceship and the Tamarian spaceship attack each other in the episode due to lack of understanding. The crew had doubts about the Tamarians. In reality, they had good intentions. Body language is a key factor in this episode. It is interesting to observe how we can even misinterpret body language, not just actual voiced language. Sometimes one’s body language can even warn us if what they are saying is different from how they feel. Kind of like when someone lies on a tv show and we are shown a clip of them crossing their fingers behind their back.
Very good point mentioning mirrored action. We see the heptapods and Louise/Ian play off each other in order to properly communicate. The body definitely plays a role here as well. Words don’t have meaning if there’s nothing to connect it to. That was why it was so important for Ian to actually walk when they wrote “Ian walking.” It is also true that a word can be misinterpreted when it has multiple meanings. In the VoiceThread it was mentioned that meaning can change from culture to culture, so it’s easy for a word or phrase to be misunderstood when transferred between different cultures or groups.
Sara Giarnieri
Hi Sara,
I love that you bring up the actual attacks that we see in the episode. One thing that people who have watched the show (and not just the single episode) would recognize is that Worf (a fun, but purely coincidental connection to the Saphir-Whorf hypothesis that you learned about this week), who suggests that Picard has been taken for a “contest between champions” is Klingon, a warrior species. His interpretation of the situation is very much that of a warrior.
Jessica Hautsch