Does language influence our thinking?

Does thinking determine language, or does language determine thinking? When I watch Arrival, I think hundreds of thousands of scripts are written worldwide, but why are most written linearly? Of course, the expression is line by line with the writing method of letters, and even the complex Chinese characters are still written. Why don’t humans tile language into two dimensions like drawing?

Arrival

When the heroine and the alien learn each other’s language, the Sapir-Wolf hypothesis mentioned is the hypothesis of the relationship between language and thinking. All high-level thinking depends on the tongue. Language determines thinking. “The language you speak determines how you think and yeah it affects how you see everything” (1.02.18). People who use different languages, the feelings and experiences of the world are other. This assumption leads to the conclusion that there is no accurate translation at all, and the learner cannot simply learn the language of another area completely unless he abandons his thinking mode and acquires the thinking mode of the other language. I think that many students who are good at learning languages ​​must feel the same way. Those who are good at foreign languages ​​have partially abandoned their original thinking habits. People who know foreign languages, such as Howard Goldblatt, have two thinking systems in their brains, just like the two systems of Windows and Apple installed on the computer. One of the problems with poor foreign language studies is the inability to transform thinking patterns. In the same way, generally speaking, all human languages ​​have a timeline, which shows that human thinking is also trapped in time. It is impossible to transform language and thinking modes, and a breakthrough will take a long time.

Metaphor is the most significant metaphor in this film and is closely related to language. If we regard language as a belief with a mystical solid color, like the Sapir-Worf hypothesis, a linguistic theory that appears in the film, then All language-related behavior directly affects the changes in the world. Therefore, the film quickly establishes various causal models. For instance, the last words of the Shang’s wife, which is the passcode, are deeply symbolic – the life of the entire earth depends on a personal death that has already occurred. To understand the film or the original novel, one must start with the metaphorical language of poetry and learn how the metaphor and the parasitic imagery are close to the truth. The words of the “heptapods “are inevitably presented in the form of ink circles. This state most intuitively illustrates what imagery language thinking is. The metaphor of time moving. So, in this case, we are stationary, and time is moving towards us. For example, Louise’s future in the movie shows that she is still while time moves toward her, and she sees herself, her daughter, and her husband in the future, as well as divorce and death.

It is also a pity that Dr.Brank and her collaborators’ interpretation of the ink language in the film still cannot escape the Western thinking of technological analysis. It may be a self-irony of the movie. At the last minute, Heptapod can’t wait and adopts a direct way to teach the opportunity, just like the Zen of Buddhism. The universe is a palindrome, but it has no words. Also as mentioned in Voicethread, conceptual metaphors are based on culture and experience, and metaphors in different cultures are not the same. For example, the name Hannah ‘Hannah’ is also a circle. It mirrors the film’s theme in a non-linear timeline, where the past is the future, and the future is the past. Louise knows the new language has mastered, giving her the same way of thinking as the heptapod. She can see both the “past” and the “future.” Simultaneously, now that the ending is known will it change the future?

In the film Dr. Brank and China, Russian experts almost simultaneously translated an alien language that could destroy the world: offer weapons, nearly a world war. It also shows that a lack of communication can create many unnecessary problems. In the end, we understand that the language of the heptapods is precisely the weapon (gift/technology/tool, gift to humanity) because once the language is truly mastered, it is possible to sense time and even turn it on. Language does affect our perception and understanding of the world. On the other hand, the process of Heptapod and Louise learning languages ​​also deepens their understanding of each other’s world, showing the concept of frame switching. Dr. Banks and Ian used their own body and body language to connect with heptapods, the body-brain connection we learned earlier about embodied cognition.

Star Trek: The Next Generation

In the episode “Darmok” of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Captain Picard, and the Tamarian are teleported to a planet and stranded. The language barrier is the problem they need to solve the most; otherwise, they can’t understand each other. So “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra,” Picard could not understand the meaning of this sentence as he tried to understand the definition of each word to understand the sentence. As a result, it is conceivable that he could not understand the meaning of each word. As mentioned in Voicethread, we need to understand these words in a specific context. The Tamarian said, “Tamba, his arms are wide,” and threw the fire. Picard can guess from his body language that the Tamarian fires him in good faith, even without knowing the sentence’s meaning. Judging from Picard and Captain Tamaria’s initial reaction and request for the second knife, he knew of the danger on the planet that he had tried to warn Captain Picard about. As they confront this enemy, Captain Picard realizes that the Tamaris speak metaphorically. Moreover, Picard could turn their conceptual metaphors into his own based on his interactions. “Give me more about Darmok. Darmok on the ocean. A meraphor for being alone. Isolation? … He went the same island as Darmok….” Judging from the conversation between Picard and Captain Tamarind, he was in Speak with metaphors of self-moving rather than time-moving metaphors. In addition, the relationship between mind, language, and body is embodied in the theory of conceptual metaphor, which is the basis of people’s experience, cognition, thinking, language, and behavior; it is the top and fundamental way of human existence. For example, the Tamarian and the way they communicate. The Tamarians use visualizations and situations from their culture and history to share what is happening in the present. In addition, after Captain Picard, and the Tamarian fought off the enemy together, even if they did not fully understand each other’s meaning, in constant communication, through some phrases, context, and body language, they also showed the theory of empathy and frame-shifting theory. So we learn that metaphor is one of the main ways we understand the world. These metaphors are rooted in our material and cultural experiences. Because each language has many metaphors, such as Chinese and English, our thinking about their understanding is entirely different not just because the conceptual systems in language and patterns are fixed in the body, but more importantly, because the body is an essential part of how we understand and physically comprehend language.