“Story of Your Life” Reading Response

How do the aliens’ language and communication styles in the story differ from human language (oral, pictographic, phonetic, etc.)?

• Since the heptapod’s perceive past, present, and future simultaneously, their speaking patterns (Heptapod A) and manner of writing (Heptapod B) differ greatly. Heptapod A is more similar to human language, since speaking is confined to the perceived passage of time (the present until the future), although in Heptapod A, the speaker can use a different word order to convey the same sentence. Heptapod B, on the other hand, took full advantage of the dimensions of a page, which complemented the heptapods’ simultaneous consciousness. 

How does the physical structure of our body inform the way we communicate? How about the aliens?

• The human body is oriented so that we are constantly facing forward. This orientation may be a reason for our linear perception of time: the past is behind us, the present is now, and the future is in front. The heptapods, on the other hand, are radially symmetric. Their ability to continually see their surroundings, regardless of their orientation, could be the cause of their simultaneous consciousness. Since we perceive time as, we tend to communicate in such a way. Humans write each part of a message one by one, so that our writing and speaking both move from past to present. However, heptapods have a tendency to write so that their whole message can be perceived all at once, which is more conducive to the way they perceive time.