Hi Guys,
Today I want us to go in-depth into the importance of language comprehension, language learning and communication by pinning my point from an American movie I watched titled «ARRIVAL». Seriously when I watched it, I was intrigued and fascinated by the storyline of the movie which got me really thinking how necessary and important it is for one to be Multilingual as well as language flexible and language adaptable.
This move was Initial release on 11 November 2016 in Russia. It was directed by Denis Villeneuve and was produced by: Shawn Levy, Dan Levine, Aaron Ryder and David Linde. The movie was awarded, Academy Award for Best Sound Editing. The major languages used was English, Russian and Standard Mandarin. It is of importance to note that it was based on the 1998 short story: "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang and had a budget of $47 million. The star cast are Amy Adams (Dr. Louise Banks), Jeremy Renner (Ian Donnelly) and Forest Whitaker (Colonel G.T. Weber).
The synopsis of the film follows a linguistic and dialectology professor Dr. Louise Banks who leads an elite team of investigators in Montana, enlisted by the U.S. Army to discover how to race against time to find a way to communicate with the alien extraterrestrial visitors who have arrived on Earth in a gigantic spaceship in 12 different locations of the world, before tensions lead to war.
Hoping to unravel the mystery, she takes a chance that could threaten her life and quite possibly all of mankind. Her job is to try to learn the aliens' language and enable communication with them. Through regular meetings with two of the aliens she starts to compile a record of the aliens' "language" - a series of drawn symbols.
The important question is - are they friend or foe? Other nations with alien landings are starting to view them as a threat, making it a race against time as war with the aliens could erupt at any moment. The nation's of this world always think things that occur unexpectedly have destructive tendencies. Time is non-linear for the aliens, and they have a different means of communication.
Amoung the elite team of experts was the theoretical physicist Dr Ian Donnelly, burdening them with the impossible task to decipher a coded conversation with the intergalactic visitors. But when all attempts to communicate prove fruitless, a practical, yet very important question will arise: does humanity have enough vocabulary to understand the aliens' answer before a new global war sparks?
They go through a series of back and forth communication with the aliens over a period of about a month. Louise takes with her a small white board to help write what she is trying to say to the aliens. She first writes the word “Human” on the board to tell them what they are. The pods perceive the written English to be a form of communication and respond with a circular symbol. This shows that they have written text. Of course, they use some ubercool space ink to write stuff.
On their next trip, Louise decides to take off her radiation suit so that the aliens can see her face. She now writes “Louise” on the board and points to herself. Ian takes off his suit too. She writes “Ian” on another board and he points to himself. The two aliens respond with two different symbols. They have names too. For the sake of convenience they name the heptapods Abbott and Costello.
The objective is to ask them – “What is the purpose of your visit to Earth?”. Language and communication is complex, especially with some advanced alien species, hence the process is long. Humans are obviously paranoid and destructive by nature. China decides to go offensive on the aliens and stop all their communications with other countries of the world. Other nations follow suit. Eventually every country stops communicating with one another and start working on their own strategy. The last communication they get from the heptapods is translated to the phrase “use weapon”.
The alien vessel, after the human attack, goes up higher. They lose the ability to enter the craft now. Ian has a breakthrough. He isolates 12 repeating symbols that match with the number of alien crafts. They feel that the aliens are trying to tell them that all 12 countries have to unite their knowledge to understand the reason of their visit.
While trying to decipher the last complex message, Louise sees a glimpse of a small transportation module coming out of the main craft. She also sees a vision of her inside the craft. She doesn’t understand the visions but she goes outside. As seen, the transportation module comes down, Louise steps in, and is taken to the craft. Inside the craft, she meets the heptapod. It explains that she has the ability to see the future. It is confirmed that “use weapon” was actually “use gift”.
The aliens have come to gift their language to the humans. They say that 3000 years later, they will need the humans help. There is no clarity on the nature of that help that they will need from the humans. But they have identified that gifting the humans with non-linear time vision is important and this will somehow enable the humans to help 3000 years later.
To a lot of people this was annoying because the reason of their “arrival” was not stressed upon in detail. The focus lies more upon the moment of not understanding the alien language and getting to understand it. This event will lead to the unification of the world to make us a species that will live long and prosper, and to help other intergalactic beings.
Leave a comment below stating if you will watch the movie and tell me what you think.
To your learning
of languages ,
FrenchLadyDisi
Your Language Tutor.
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