Q1: How do aliens in the story language and communication style different from human language (oral, pictographic, phonetic ,)etc?
In the story, the author divided Heptapod’s language and communication into two parts:
Heptapod A and Heptapod B.
- Heptapod A refers to the spoken language of Heptapod, which can be seen as the oral part of the communication style. Different from human language, which has a rigorous grammar system strictly ruling on parts of speech, position and usage, word order or sentence structure (structure of subordinate clause) in Heptapod’s spoken language doesn’t really matters.
- Heptapod B refers to the written language of Heptapod, which can actually been seen as a visual-oriented communication form of “full-fledged, general-purpose graphical language“(Chiang 14). In this part, the difference can be seen from the following aspects: Arrangement, Glyph and the Expression of thought.
a) Arrangement: Unlike the human language system that utilizes linear system, Heptapod uses “a nonlinear system of orthography that qualified as true writing” (Chiang 12). With such system, all the “characters” were placed together to form a giant conglomeration when there comes to be a sentence.
b) Glyph: Given the different foundation of sentence arrangement, the glyph can be seen as the second difference. In human language, the shape of each letter and word is fixed, so people change the tense, voice, singular and plural of a word (usually adding something before or after it) to fit the word into the context of the sentence. However, Heptapod adapts a so-called “blended glyph”, in which an inflection system and modulation system is used. They use rotation, deformation, change of position and other parameters to show the relationship between the active and passive actions.While glyphs (marked by line thickness and arc) replaced adjectives in human language.
c)the Expression of thought: Humans are accustomed to a coherent pattern of consciousness, which tends to carry the whole thought process (which may not always be fully expressed) through their heads phonologically. However, Heptapod seems to adapt a synchronous and parallel modes of consciousness, with which “semagraphic designs would appear fully-formed, articulating even complex ideas all at once” (Chiang 26). Also, their understanding of discourse as a behavioral process makes the difference as well.
Q2: How does the physical structure of our body inform the way we communicate? How about the aliens?
Human being a creature is itself symmetrical in a two-dimensional way (as most of our organs tend to come in pairs), it is easy to understand that language is also understood as a two-dimensional concept. One obvious example is that human tend to construct sentences in a linear manner (from left to right, use clauses to indicate structure). Also, human’s oral and written language actually falls into the same construction and grammar system and serves as counterpart for each other.
In the case of Heptapod, Their bodies are built (7 eyes, 7 tentacles… )so that they do not need to distinguish between horizontal directions (as it is always the “front”). Therefore, they developed a more three-dimensional language system(Sentences no longer consist of individual words, but changes the direction of the arrangement, rotate the deformation, through the different thickness of the stroke to form a giant hieroglyphic). Also there oral and written system of language aren’t symmetric but holds different function separately.