Initial Reading Response
Although Louise has knowledge of the future, she does not resist and fulfills her life prophecy. This highlights the importance of “performance” that the novel mentions (34). For humans, the actualization of events is what actually makes life worth living. Knowledge alone is dull; it only becomes meaningful when you live through it — only when you feel the emotions and experiences in the present do you truly feel alive and embrace your full humanness. We all know that we will die one day but we aim to live life to the fullest! Because of this message, I think Ted Chiang is an outstanding writer who has the strong ability to elicit emotions within the viewers and meaningful insight into how we live our lives with others.
I believe that this novel is a very good insight into our course, Communication Lab, because it raises questions on how we interact with our environment and why we interact the way that we do — influences of anatomy and cognitive processes. Through reading this novel, we as students are prompted to wonder what other modes and methods of communication we can use and how effective these are.
What is happening in the story?
Dr. Louise Banks is a linguist. She tells her unborn daughter the story of how she was conceived. Aliens begin orbiting Earth and sending communications devices called “looking glasses”(4). Colonel Weber plays a recording of the aliens to Louise but she would like to interact with the “native speaker[s]” in person (3). The U.S. military recruits Louise to learn the aliens’ language in collaboration with Dr. Gary Donnelly, who is supposed to be learning the aliens’ physics. Through their “looking glass,” Louise and Gary meet two aliens, called “heptapods”(5). They have a radially symmetrical appearance: they have arms and eyes placed symmetrically around their torso, an orifice on the underside of their bodies, and bony ridges. Heptapod A, the alien’s spoken language, has fluid word order and center clauses. Heptapod B, the alien’s writing system, has semagrams that combine in any order and are semasiographic. Humans experience time linearly but the heptapods experience time simultaneously — teleology. Eventually, the heptapods leave Earth without explanation. Due to Heptapod B, Louise can tell the future. At the end of the story, Louise agrees to have a child with Gary, remembering both happy and upsetting moments in her family but unsure of how she will feel about these things when they come to pass.
What is the story about?
The story explores the idea of communication, different forms of communication, and what influences these forms. The story highlights the role that anatomy plays in species to formulate a language or communication system. Furthermore, it also begs the question of how these systems can influence our day-to-day lives. For example, if one learns Heptapod B, do they have the capacity to exercise free will?
Louise insists on ‘meeting’ the aliens to learn about them. Why?
Only by meeting the aliens can Louise fully engage with the aliens. In order to learn their language and communication system, it is necessary to communicate with the authentic “native speakers” — the aliens (3).
In which ways does their language (spoken & written) differ from our human languages (in this case, English…)?
Spoken: Fluid word order and center clauses. English has word order such as subject and predicate.
Written: Semagrams that combine in any order and are semasiographic. English has a linear system and is glatographic.
Something else to note is, for the hepatpods, the spoken and written system play different cultural and cognitive roles.
Thinking about the connection between their (heptapods) writing system and their body structure.
The heptapods have “no distinct joints” so they move in a fluid manner. Furthermore, they have a radially symmetrical appearance: their arms and eyes are placed symmetrically around their torso. Thus, their language is fluid — having no word order — and does not have orientation because their body lacks form and orientation itself.
Describe the process of learning their language.
Louise first used her own frame of reference to understand their language by noting gestures and speech patterns, Louise also attempted to reproduce the heptapods’ speech with her own voice which was unsuccessful. On the other hand, Gary acts out basic physical movements accompanied by the English word for each movement then the heptapods mimic: Raspberry mimics Gary’s movements and Flapper displays the heptapods’ written word for each movement.
How can physical differences in our anatomy dictate modes of communication? (in the story and in our lives)
Anatomy can play a big role in the way we communicate with others. In the novel, Louise is incapable of producing the sounds that the heptapods make because she does not have the organs to do so. The heptapods “[did not] sound like they’re using a larynx to make those sounds”(3). Similarly, a person who is deaf will need other forms of communication such as sign language.
Why are some concepts seemingly more intuitive to the aliens than others?
Whereas humans find linear cause-and-effect concepts more intuitive, heptapods find teleological concepts like action and calculus more intuitive because they think in a non-linear way where the “effect”t of something is known before the “cause”.
What happens when the scientists try to explain a physics principle to the aliens?
The aliens understand the physics principle almost instantaneously because of the Fermat’s principle as this concept is more intuitive to them.
Is there any better way of explaining human-originated technologies?
We can use the Pioneer Plaque as an example of how we could explain human-made technologies to aliens. Based on the written system adopted by the aliens, we could incorporate graphic elements into our explanation as well as consider the holistic explanation of the technology in the graphics.
Notes
