12/31/2023 0 Comments Arrival alien language translatorThat’s still the subject of intense debate amongst linguists, biologists, psychologists, and philosophers. But this task is complicated by the fact that we barely understand how our ability to use language came about. To make progress, we might need to understand the processes which brought about their ability to use their own language. They might not even have the necessary sense mechanisms or cognitive capacities. First, it seems very generous for us to presume that learning a language in audio and/or written form will be something that an extraterrestrial will be practically adjusted to do. The nature of the aliens’ intelligence and of their ability to communicate will have been generally shaped by their evolutionary history. This would give their thought and speech specific capacities and limitations, just as it does for us. Whatever this history was, the capacity for using and understanding language is likely to be hard-wired into them, much like it is for us. One assumption we would probably be wise to make when encountering extraterrestrials is that they will have had a biological history which will have played a major role in how they evolved to think and speak. But an interesting question is brought to the surface here: is the task of communicating with aliens even possible? Contrary to what Arrival suggests, I think not.įilm images © Paramount Pictures 2016 The Problem Goes Deeper By contrast, Arrival goes straight to questions like “Should human languages be introduced to the alien visitors in both written and audio form?” And “Would this make their task of understanding us more complicated or easier?” Using theories of language acquisition, the linguist, Louise Banks (Amy Adams) argues to her superior in military uniform (Forest Whitaker) that human language (specifically, American English) should be introduced in both written and audio form. An explanation of how the aliens knew human language was not discussed at all in The Day the Earth Stood Still, neither in the 2008 remake nor the 1951 classic. There’s plenty of sci fi material where the task of establishing interspecies communication is treated as almost magic – much like the Babel Fish in The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which you stick in your ear and it translates all alien languages for you. Too many first contact classics, such as Independence Day (1996), avoid the question of communication altogether, leaving those with their thinking caps on confused about how plot twists such as a computer virus infecting an alien mothership (as is the climax of Independence Day) are meant to work. What makes Arrival unique is how the task of communicating with extraterrestrials is at its core, rather than sidelined or avoided. After a number of breakthroughs in communicating with the aliens, the sharing of information between the global sites breaks down as the movie shifts to the question of what the aliens really are here to do: Are their intentions hostile and linked to a desire to divide and conquer, or are they here for some other reason? The plot thickens into an interesting conclusion I will not spoil for those who have not seen the film yet. Military personnel, intelligence personnel, and scientists are already working there, and monitoring the progress of those working at similar sites around the world. She’s picked up in the middle of the night and taken by helicopter to a military campsite near where one of the spacecraft hovers. Rather than follow the hysteria of a planet coming to terms with its first encounter with aliens, as is a frequent trope of films with this sort of premise, the movie follows a linguist who works as part of a team tasked with figuring out how to communicate with these visitors from another world. In Arrival (2016), a number of large oval craft arrive on Earth from outer space. SUBSCRIBE NOW Films Arrival Christopher Carroll asks if communicating with aliens really would be possible.
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