Story Of Your Life

Since I already saw the movie version of the story in 2016, I could focus more on “Communication” instead of plots when I read the original version this time.

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

Oral: based on the story, heptapods could make sound that might not be reproduced by human due to the different place of articulation, “Their vocal tract is substantially different from a human vocal tract. It doesn’t sound like they’re using a larynx to make those sounds.” Therefore, their oral language might be hard to be distinguished only by ears.

Pictographic: Heptapods maintain two types of language – their spoken language and written language is different, and their written language is “appeared to be logographic.” That is, “Their script isn’t word-divided; a sentence is written by joining the logograms for the constituent words. They join the logograms by rotating and modifying them. ” People could clearly see the difference her: while for human, one sentence is made up of several different words, for Heptapods, one sentence is a diagram.

Grammar: since Heptapods’ written language is not word-divided, they also follows a different grammar rule: “it was comprehensible so far: free word order, even to the extent that there was no preferred order for the clauses in a conditional statement, in defiance of a human language universal.”

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

For human, we could use facial expression and body language to better convey our idea when we communication. For example, when we are excited, our eyebrows will raise, and we will smile or raise our hands to show the excitement. People’s distinguished facial expression and body language serve as a complement to communicate our moods and feelings.

However, it is not possible (at least from human’s perspective) for Heptapods to use facial expression or body language. Based on the fiction, “it looked like a barrel suspended at the intersection of seven limbs. It was radially symmetric, and any of its limbs could serve as an arm or a leg. ” In this situation, since Heptapods don’t have distinctive five sense organs, they fail to communicate their feelings through facial expression; moreover, as they’re perfectly symmetric, their body language is not powerful neither to communicate their thought.