Reading response: Story of your life

In short fiction story Story of your life, Ted Chiang introduces us to a group of aliens who use a language system that is totally different from ours.

The biggest difference comes in the written part. While the human language uses a sentence that has a clear start and end, theirs join everything together:”looked more like a bunch of intricate graphic designs”.

As Gary the physicist interpret( and “me”, Doctor Banks the linguist agrees), this is probably due to their unique physical structure: instead of being axis-symmetrical like us humans, they are radial-symmetrical, meaning their bodies have “no ‘forward’ direction”.

To put this in a nutshell, humans communicate in a linear manner, while the “heptapods” do so in a way hat resembles the primitive sign system.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *