This week, we watched Arrival and “Darmok” from Star Trek: The Next Generation: media that focuses heavily on cognitive linguistics, which views language as not separate from our way of thinking, but deeply embedded in our overall cognitive capabilities. I was really intrigued and entertained by watching these concepts play out; it made me think about how English approaches language compared to other languages.
I first watched Arrival, directed by Dennis Villeneuve and based off of the short story “The Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang. This story follows Louise, a linguist, who is sourced by the government to help translate the language of aliens who had landed on Earth. I read this novella earlier this month and am a big fan of Dennis Villeneuve’s work on Dune, so I was super excited going into this movie.
After watching, my thoughts are…that I really liked it! Though it differed considerably from the novella, the story is just as chilling and compelling. Both the soundtrack and visuals were beautiful and haunting – as I would expect from Villeneuve.
This story is a great way to explain cognitive linguistics, as I knew little about them before reading the novella, but came out understanding the concept fairly well. As Louise learns the language of the heptopods – her name for the aliens – she begins to experience time non-linearly as they do. This means that she begins to see flashes of the future, seeing her daughter who hasn’t been born yet, her husband, and her teaching a room of people the heptopod writing system. This illustrates the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, which states that the language you speaks influences the way you think. This hypothesis is even mentioned by name in the movie to help explain to the viewer Louise’s ability to see the future. In one scene, Louise explains that the heptopods can write complex sentences in one logogram – the symbols they use for writing – which would require them to know everything they have to communicate all at once. Comparing this to human speech, where one word comes after another and sentences can be changed in the middle of speaking them, heptopod writing requires a knowledge of the future. This begs the question – were the heptopods able to tell the future before they invented their method of writing, or did the writing give them this sense over time?
The next media I watched was the episode “Darmok” from the show Star Trek: The Next Generation. Though I have never seen any of the Star Trek shows before, I was excited to finally take a look at one of them, as I know they handle some really interesting sci-fi concepts.
This episode follows the Enterprise as they attempt to communicate with the Tamarians, a race of people whom nobody has been able to understand. After unsuccessfully trying to speak to the Tamarians, Captain Picard is teleported to the surface of the nearest planet – El-Adrel – along with the Tamarian Captain of their ship. At first, they are still unable to understand each other. The Tamarians speak in cryptic and repetitive clips of sentences, such as “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra” and “Shaka, when the walls fell”. After spending time with the Tamarian Captain, Picard learns that these phrases refer to stories from Tamarian mythohistory that reflect their current situation – in other words, they use metaphors to explain what is happening. Because Picard does not have the cognitive frame of knowing what these stories are, he doesn’t understand what the Captain is trying to say. I really like the scene where Picard and the mortally wounded Tamarian Captain are sitting by the fire explaining their stories to each other. Though they cannot fully understand each other still, Picard has begun speaking in the same metaphors and even attempts to tell the story of Gilgamesh in this way. It was really heartwarming to see them finally begin to understand each other and made it even more devastating when the Tamarian Captain dies, Picard knowing that he sacrificed himself so that his race could finally be understood by others.
4 thoughts on “Same Word Different Meanings: Examining Cognitive Linguistics”
Hi Maddie,
I love your point about how the circular writing of the hetpopods reflects their perception and experience of time. For us, language is experienced linearly. We read the words of a sentence, the sentences on a page, we hear someone speak to us, word by word. Now, studies have shown that’s not entirely how we process language, but there is still a linearity and chronology to it. But, as you note, the hetpopods don’t have a linear or chronological experience of language. They perceive it all at once. This also means that they likely don’t experience the sentence level frame-shifting that Coulson is talking about (which is not to say that they don’t experience frame shifting at all; in fact, we know very little about what their cognition looks like, but it is not unlikely that it is very, very different from ours.)
You do a nice job of discussing cognitive frames in your discussion of “Darmok.” As you note, Picard doesn’t have the cognitive frames in place to understand what the Tamarians are saying—he lacks the necessary background information. This demonstrates the importance of context in how we construct meaning. Language does not exist and we do not process it independent of context. Rather our construction of meaning is largely dependent on the context in which we encounter it and the culture in which it is embedded.
Jessica Hautsch
Hi Madeline!
I enjoyed reading your post as it does a great job of summarizing the film Arrival and the Star Trek episode “Darmok.” Your question about whether the heptapods were able to tell the future before they invented their method of writing, or if the writing gave them this sense over time is an interesting one. For me it connects to the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, which states that the language you speak influences the way you think. At the same time I found it a little difficult to understand as to why Dr. Banks was experiencing hallucinations before meeting the heptapods. But it does make sense when you think about how learning the heptapods’ language gives you the ability to live in the past, present and future.
Alessa Bustillo
Hi Alessa,
Yes, the chicken or the egg question of language and conceptualization is one that cognitive linguists have been grappling with. What they have tended to suggest is that because they are all part of the same conceptual system, they develop together. Our language is based in our conceptual system and are conceptual system is developed, at least in part by our language, and it is all embedded in our culture and grounded in our body.
Jessica Hautsch
Hi Madeline,
You brought up something that I haven’t seen mentioned yet: did the writing give the Heptapods this sense over time? Such a good question! I don’t have a plausible answer, but this has led me to wonder if the future will play out the same or if the outcome will change since they altered current events.
For Darmok, I think maybe you can relate the death scene to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis since Picard has now trained himself to speak in metaphors like the Tamarians. While the Tamarian did ask for a story, the story that Picard told was actually a metaphor for the Tamarian Captain’s death. So, instead of saying he was dying, he told the story of a fictional character’s death.
toyoung