“Meaning is not a deposit in a concept-container. It is alive and active, dynamic and distributed, constructed for local purposes of knowing and acting” (Mark Turner). We learned this week that the meaning of different words in languages are completely subjective. They are words that are created through social interactions, physical environments, and all the problems and solutions that follow each specific one. “Arrival” and Star Trek The Next Generation’s “Darmok” realize that language is not something that can be immediately understood by an outsider. There are many different factors that go into the creation and understanding of words in a new language.
The crew in Start Trek find themselves at a loss when trying to communicate with an alien race known as The Children of Tama. After failing to communicate as a group, the alien race would transport Picard and their captain to the planet’s surface in order to talk face to face. After continuously failing, Picard becomes cold after trying to start a fire for himself. Knowing that he would not sleep if Picard was cold, the alien takes a lit branch from his own fire and throws it at Picard while saying “Temba, his arms wide”. Even though Picard had no idea what the alien said, he knew that with his tone and politeness that the alien was only trying to help and become friends with him.
“Arrival” was a very interesting movie to watch for the first time. An alien race has landed in multiple different countries across the world and no one on Earth has the means to communicate with them. Top scientists and linguists from around the world are being summoned in order to understand why the aliens are on Earth and what their end goal is. After speaking in shrills and moans, linguist Louise Banks realizes that the best way for us to communicate with them is through written language. Showing the word “Human” to the aliens allowed them to realize that we were trying to communicate and they responded accordingly. When linguistics fail, simply touching or being in close proximity of another person displays trust and a want to be friendly. This is seen by Louise taking off her hazmat suit and placing her hand on the divider between her and the aliens. She wanted to show the aliens who they were really communicating with and that they only desired to learn about them.
To say I love language and words and all that mumbo-jumbo would be a massive understatement. I still remember the days staying up later than I was supposed to, reading by the light of my princess nightlight (That probably messed up my eyes more than I would like to admit, but all good I guess, glasses here I come!). Those were the days, they were also the days where I could function with all the energy in the world on like 3 hours of sleep, but I’m no longer at that point. If I were to operate on three hours of sleep nowadays I would need an energy drink and 4 times the recommended dose of Advil. But, those nights lying awake in bed, squinting to make out the words in my Magic Treehouse Book was some of the fondest memories I cherish, and it set in motion my love, drive and desire to study English. And although when I decided to do that my immigrant parents looked at me in horror and proclaimed that I was going to live in a box, I knew that this was my passion and understood just how important language is.
Now after that long ass intro (Don’t come at me for cursing, it is a valid part of our language goddamn it) we finally get into this analysis of one very stupid (sorry professor) and one amazing piece of media
OK, if I could insert an audible sigh right now I would. And I mean this with my heart in the right place, I really do, but the aliens in Star Trek: The Next Generation are beyond infuriating, actually, it’s mind-boggling how infuriating they truly are. THEY DO NOT HAVE VERBS, let me repeat, NO VERBS. Their language is based upon metaphors, interesting at first (or so I thought before it became infuriating!). Like how do they even communicate? Metaphors, especially metaphors that relate to very specific pop culture or culture-specific things IS NOT A WAY TO COMMUNICATE. Ok, I got that out of my system.
Just to visualize how impossible this would be, I’m going to make our own example. Imagine if I wanted to convey that I was sad and longing for something I would say Gatsby on the dock. But here’s the issue, you misconstrued what I said and interpret it as how he was hopeful and dedicated to trying to get Dasiy back. Or even how Gatsby was living through a pipedream and was detached from reality. The issue is the broad sentences meant to convey extremely specific things lead to multiple interpretations. Not to mention that if you hadn’t even heard about The Great Gatsby, you would have no freaking clue what I was talking about because it’s a conceptual metaphor with no previous context. To communicate with us everyone must know every single story or cultural impactful event in our culture. AND AGAIN NO VERBS!
Metaphors are fantastic, they help us convey very complex feelings into very limited space (Your hardheaded, I’m bent out of shape) but it can not be the crux of an entire language. I would wager that it would be impossible for a language to develop just by using metaphors because I feel as though with almost 8,000 languages on Earth, we would have seen at least ONE example of this occurring. But no, because it is stupid and impossible (sorry professor lol).
The alien species who was able to figure out space travel but not how to add verbs to their language
Now, after that rant, if you haven’t moved on yet, I’m quite shocked actually, but happy nonetheless, and on we go to talk about the good part of this week’s viewings. Arrival has been on my list to watch for a while, and I was glad to finally cross it off! I’m not usually a fan of those slow-burn movies that tone everything down a notch to keep this element of realism in effect, but I found myself enthralled and glued to the screen. Louise saying whose child is that literally caught me off guard so much I audibly gasped, let me tell ya.
The way they approach language is quite fascinating. We never actually see a verbal communication format for Abbott or Costello, it’s all through visual media. Essentially only writing and no talking, is this because they have no mouth? Hard to say because they lived in the densest freaking fog I’ve ever seen so I have no clue if they had mouths even. But the way they present the language in a circular fashion is fascinating. It’s a sentence no doubt just rounded. The blotches represent certain words, and it actually ties into how they perceive time and space, everything is cyclic and follows one after the other. Everything is a circle. This shows just how important the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is when trying to break down language. These creatures see language in these circle blotches, they never thought about language as just an individual blotch, it was always a circle. As compared to how Americans typically look at language as individual words strung together in a straight line, this is a drastic difference just based on how our language developed over time.
This reminds me all too much of those Rorschach Inkblot tests you see in all those old movies about crazy people in an asylum.
This difference in linguistic relativity can even be found on our own planet. Many languages on earth cause certain people to think quite differently from others. For example in Spanish, every person who speaks it sees objects as feminine or masculine. Now compare that with Mandarin where there are no gendered pronouns unless it’s in writing, both he and she is Ta, (With a little bar over the a) and it sounds exactly the same with speaking. This difference causes a huge difference in how these drastically different languages affect the thoughts and views of the world, seeing everything as gendered vs. nothing as gendered.
Language is always something that is going to affect how we view and interpret things. I for one only know some words in Portuguese even though I’m a native English speaker and that makes me look at the world differently than my fellow peers. But even humans who fluently speak the same language can have drastically different interpretations based on their own experiences which causes them to look at the world in slightly differing ways. And so when people tell me, psssshhhh English isn’t that hard I look at them and ask how the hell this is a grammatically correct sentence, “He couldn’t explain that that thing he created wasn’t working.” God, I hate when I’m writing and I have to write a sentence like that. Anyway, English is messy and language is something that I will always cherish, it’s the only difference between us and animals. They may be able to communicate but can they say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious? I think not!
“A different language is a different vision of life”- Federico Fellini. As someone who speaks more than one language, this quote really stands out to me. Learning Portuguese over 15 years, speaking with my family, going to the country, and really learning the culture and environment has really shaped me to be the person I am today. The mind, language, body, and communication all work together to create us as individuals. In “Arrival” we learn that we humans can learn a lot by knowing someone’s language. By learning their language, we can understand their mind, body language and how they choose to communicate with each other. In the episode Darmok, “Star Trek: The Next Generation”, we learned that the Tamarians language was composed of conceptual metaphors.
I was very excited when she started talking about the history of Portugal, and then Heptapod arrived.
Starting with “Arrival”, “Arrival” is a movie that really made me think twice at the end. This film really teaches us how to think outside the box. Dr Louise Banks and her partner Ian work together and quickly realize that their language is by circular pictures that they create. Every circular pattern has a different meaning. Slowly throughout the movie, we start learning small details. We learn that their language is non-linear so when Louise learned the language, she now knows the future because of how their language is. Time is non- existing for them; they have no understanding of time. It took me awhile to fully understand the movie, but after I figured it out (wow). Louise and Ian are teaching Heptapod by using a white board, by doing the actual concept of the word. In one part of the film, Ian writes on the white board, “Ian walking” and then Ian begins walking in front of them. This shows how the physical body is an important role in communications. We need the mind, language, body, and communication to work as one to understand each other. I think it was fascinating as more the time she was with them, she was truly understanding her and building a bond with her. Louise seemed to start being worried about Abbot and Costello and made sure they were both present. Thinking of the voice thread, 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 bodies. Allowing the heptapod to see her intentions were pure.
Ian physically walking“Now thats a proper introduction”
Lastly the episode Darmok was a bit harder to grasp for me. The one scene that helped me and I’m sure a lot of people was the comparison of Romeo and Juliet. Deanna states, “Juliet on her balcony”. Dr crusher states at the end that if you don’t know who Juliet is and what she was doing in the balcony than the image alone would not help them understand the meaning of that scene. They made a valid point when pointing that out. They felt like that towards the Tamarians. Embedded Cognition and were used in this episode. The idea that what language is being demonstrated to us is how we experience and feel. Since the Tamarians do not have a sense of individuality, to the point that there is no word “I” in their vocabulary. It makes it harder for them to understand each other. For example Temba says,”Temba, his arms wide”, to indicate his intent to give an item to Picard, and his motive of generosity and friendly helpfulness. We know that we use a lot of metaphors when speaking but with this episode, I think we can fully realize it.
The problem with not understanding someone’s language is that it can turn in unexpected and not wanted violence. Words and body language can become twisted and make a person believe something else that was not what the original idea was. With both “Arrival” and Darmok both could have ended with war and people dying, just because they had both different ways of communicating.
