Reading Response – Story Of Your Life
- How do the aliens’ language and communication styles in the story differ from human language (oral, pictographic, phonetic, etc.)?
In all, the aliens’ language can be divided into two parts: the written language and the speaking language. For humans these two types have some connections, but for aliens, they are quite different. As humans use the words which can reflect the pronunciation, the aliens use them to show the meaning, so it means their writing has no relationship with what they are saying. When it comes to the aliens, their voice is like a wet dog shaking the water out of its fur, which is vague and unclear. They use the logographic system to write and they don’t use the punctuation in the middle of a sentence. The aliens’ written characters are different from humans’ as well, because they combine the characters together to make them rotate in distinct angles or modified instead of using the word-divided way to write down the words, which makes human researchers confused. Also, their method of writing is surprising since it looks without logic and looks like a drawn graphic, compared with humans writing down the words in lines. Last, as for the grammar, Heptapods’ language is not as ordered as humans’ language.
- How does the physical structure of our body inform the way we communicate? How about the aliens?
The alien’s vocal track is different from human’s vocal track, and they use the orifice at the top of its body vibrate to talk to others.