In this weeks films, cognitive linguistics was very much apparent. We noticed it because we had to for the assignment otherwise, we would have just watched the movie and episode without thinking about the relationship between mind, language, body, and communication.
Something that stood out to me a lot in this weeks VoiceThread was the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. In Arrival Louise explained the hypothesis as a theory that states “[the] language you speak determines how you think… it affects how you see everything” (Arrival 1.02). I really liked how the film explicitly used something we learned. I also really liked the hypothesis in general because it’s something that is true, but nobody thinks about because it’s such a normal thing. One only thinks about it when they come into contact with something different that isn’t like they’re used to.
In the film, the heptapods communicate using strange figures that the humans know nothing about. Louise is there helping to translate the symbols, but it’s difficult for her too. At one point the heptapods create a symbol that Louise translated to say “offer weapon.” Because of the cognitive linguistics and the cognitive frame that humans have, the scientists believed the heptapods were giving a warning and basically trying to accentuate danger. Louise was able to explain to the scientists that they don’t truly know if the heptapods know the difference between a weapon and a tool. Louise was objective and didn’t want to assume Abbott and Costello wanted to fight. She was aware that the creatures and humans obviously didn’t communicate in the same way.
In the Star Trek episode, it took me a little while to realize that the aliens that they encountered spoke in metaphors and not exactly English which is why the crew had trouble understanding. The captain Dathon told the captain of the crew “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra” and this is actually a metaphor which means working together. They use events that have happened in Tamarian history to communicate how they feel and what they believe is happening.
In a similar way to Arrival, the strange beings didn’t use weapons in the same way humans, or Star Trek aliens, see weapons as. Dathon holding up two knives didn’t mean he wanted to fight, he was just trying to communicate.
In both films, strange beings are interacting with the “normal” characters. Communication played a huge role because both parties communicated differently. They had to figure out how to understand each other and to know the needs of the strange beings. Both respective parties and even readers saw just how important meaning in languages is embedded in the context of a person, or thing for the heptapods. Language is truly a remarkable form of communication that is so different, yet so similar depending on where it’s coming from.
6 thoughts on “What do you even mean?”
Hi Alex,
It is important to note that the strong version of the Saphir-Whorf hypothesis has been largely rejected. But we think and through our language, and our linguist and cognitive systems are not separate, but part of the same system. Our language is also integral to how we construct our conceptualization of and how we perceive the world. You also make a great point about how the hetpapods aren’t familiar with the cognitive frames that construct a different meanings for tool and weapon. As Louise notes, language and meaning is fuzzy and the distinctions between a tool and a weapon is often dependent on context.
Yes, your comments raises an important point about the Star Trek episode. The universal translators that the crew uses translates the Tamarian language to English (a nifty device that makes it easier for both the crew and the viewers to understand the aliens encountered on the show). But there isn’t an easy translation of the proper nouns, and without being embedded in Tamarian culture, it is difficult to construct meaning from those words; the metaphors don’t make sense to the crew. Can you connect this to what we learned about conceptual metaphors in this week’s VT?
Jessica Hautsch
Yes I can! The Star Trek episode showed that the Tamarians spoke based on Tamarian culture and past experiences. They were comparing past experiences to what they were currently going through and essentially speaking metaphorically. They didn’t realize what they were doing and probably didn’t even know what a metaphor was, but referring to one thing by mentioning the other and in-essence comparing and contrasting them is a metaphor!
alnunez
Hi Alex,
Yes! I love your observation about how they might not even be aware of the metaphoric nature of their discourse. After all, we don’t often see the conceptual metaphors that we use as metaphors either. Even in the previous sentence I used a UNDERSTANDING IS SEEING metaphor, even though I didn’t think of it as a metaphor as I was typing.
Jessica Hautsch
Hey Alex,
I wish we had a universal translator that the crew used to translate the Tamarian language, but I remember watching that scene and it wasn’t so easy because of all the nouns and metaphors that were being used by their language. Isn’t it interesting how in the scene Louise understood that they did not fully realize or was capable of understanding what “offer weapon” meant to the humans. If Louise wasn’t there, this movie would have turned out differently. Showing us that we can perceive words and phrases differently in different languages. Its saved them having Louise there to truly know that they didn’t want to harm the humans, but different word means different meanings in different languages. which I believe people call as a language barrier.
gcoito
Hey Alex!
I really love your post. I think you did a great job connecting the two films by discussing how in both they deal with the dilema of trying to communicate with one another all whilst dealing with language and cultural barriers. Another thing I noticed in your post is how you identify that Louise didn’t assume the aliens wanted to hurt the humans. I think the same was seen in the Star Trek episode. The crew was hesitant to assume Dathon’s intentions were to hurt them. The one crew member even said it’s not smart to take action when you don’t know even just one word someone is saying to you. That could lead to permanent consequences.
Ceili Howland
Hi Alex!
I loved your post! Based on what you said for my post, we did write about the same Arrival scene!! I love how you went about explaining everything using the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis scene as foundation for the your movie analysis. I think Louise’s observations about the Heptapods when they said “offer weapon” and later “use weapon” put their motives into perspective. We humans think with a very destructive “survival of the fittest” mindset where if a new species mentions anything weapon or war related we immediately think… “war”. In regards to this, I loved the scene after this where Louise is telling Colonel Weber the story about making first contact with the Aborigines (even though the story is apparently made up for leverage purposes) and how the travelers heard Kangaroo and though the word was the name of the animal but later english speakers realized it meant “we do not understand”.
tpenske