![]() To study real-time language processing, researchers often track people’s eye movements while they look at a collection of objects or a scene and listen to spoken language. In English, and in all known human languages, processing is thought to be incremental–it proceeds bit by bit as the signal (e.g., speech) unfolds. In the novella, heptapods have a series of eyes going all the way around their heads – they can see in 360 degrees at once, and don’t appear to distinguish between “forwards” and “backwards” as they have full perception in any direction. Chiang’s novella describes a logogram as being able to contain an arbitrary amount of information (words, sentences, paragraphs).Īn implication of the film is that the heptapods are able to entertain all of the intricacies of one of these logograms at once. Their logograms are intended to be interpreted all at once – and they can be quite complicated. One of the most fascinating things about the heptapods’ communication system is that it’s non-linear. As Louise learns the heptapod language, she begins to “remember” the future – the way she thinks has apparently started to change based on the new language she is learning. Eventually, we come to understand that Louise’s daughter will die at a young age, and that these memories are “flash-forwards,” and not flash-backs. Meanwhile, as Louise begins to understand the language of the heptapods, she starts to experience memories that initially appear to be “flashbacks” from her life–mostly of Louise’s daughter at various ages. In the novella, the little bits of meaning in the logograms can be arranged in all sorts of configurations, meaning they must be perceivable from any angle. These logograms are complex, with many meaningful pieces, and they are produced all at once. Over time, Louise discovers the heptapods communicate using intricate symbols, which she terms logograms, that do not correspond to their verbal communication system. The aliens, who have seven limbs, are dubbed heptapods. As a field linguist, Louise has experience working with under-studied languages, though nothing can compare to the complex visual communication system she is about to uncover. government recruits a scientist, Louise, to learn their language. Learning the language of the heptapodsĪfter the aliens land in oblong spaceships across the world, the U.S. To my eye, the novel dives in deeply in a few places where the film is wanting–but both encourage us to reconsider our own stories by taking a different vantage point on our own lives.Ī warning: SPOILERS AHEAD! There’s no way to talk about the most interesting parts of Arrival without spoiling this film, so I won’t even try. ![]() Both the book and the film involves the exploration of an alien communication system that is radically (pun intended) different from human language. And as a grad student who studies how the temporal dynamics of how the human brain processes language, the movie left a striking impression.Īfter watching the film, I quickly laid hands on its inspiration, a novella by Ted Chiang called The Story of Your Life. Lots of sci-fi movies might begin with funny-shaped vessels landing on earth, but very few of them end with a (female!) linguist helping to save humanity by learning to speak the language of their inhabitants.Īs an only occasional viewer of science fiction movies, I was pleasantly surprised by the limited number of explosions and larger number of thoughtful moments-not to mention the thoughtful treatment of “aliens” as cognitively advanced beings and the beautiful illustration of their visual language-in Arrival.
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