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From: deb5@midway.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: sf & language
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References: <5e0tlb$igt$1@darla.visi.com> <3317e47b.116822589@nntp.ix.netcom.com> <5f21gc$bm4@ccshst05.cs.uoguelph.ca> <5f26q9$25u@katie.vnet.net>
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 1997 22:36:06 GMT
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In article <5f26q9$25u@katie.vnet.net>, Bezel <bezel@vnet.net> wrote:
>In article <5f21gc$bm4@ccshst05.cs.uoguelph.ca>,
>Loki <gwiseman@uoguelph.ca> wrote:
>
><Trek>
>
>>That's one of my immediate problems with it--how do you communicate the 
>>basis for commmunication?  How ca you explain thge  allegories to someone 
>>who dodesn't understand them in the first place?  How does anyone -learn- 
>>that language?
>
>I fooled around for a while with a plot for a book about that
>species.  I wound up deciding that the only reasonable explanation
>was that male children are able to acquire languages normally at
>birth, but at puberty lose the ability to use language normally and
>fall back on the 'Darmok..' stuff.  Females of the species can acquire
>language normally and also keep it through puberty, so they teach the
>male children.

The much more reasonable explanation is that their language works normally
but constant metaphorical references are a sign of erudition.  (It would
be as if all formal discourse in English were made up almost entirely of
references to and quotations from Shakespeare.)  Speaking the language in
a straightforward way would sound like baby talk.  An extremely
ethnocentric culture would assume that anyone who can only speak in this
manner is too stupid to be worth communicating with.

For a historical parallel, think of mediaeval China.  What do you think
the entrenched litterati thought of the ideas of foreigners who couldn't
garnish them with constant references to the Confucian classics, even if
they spoke otherwise flawless Chinese?  (I wonder if there's a Chinese
equivalent to the saying, "It's not what the talking dog says that's
important.")  Or, conversely, what do you think mediaeval Europeans
thought of someone who was completely ignorant of the Bible, even if they
had flawless Latin?

To make this explanation work, you just have to assume the crew don't
realise what an exagerration it is to say that this language is "composed
entirely of metaphor".  Given the state of linguistic ignorance in our
time, this is by far the most plausible explanation.  How linguistically
sophisticated can people who never, ever have to learn a foreign language
be?

>Actually, this was one of the very few Trek episodes I thought 
>qualified as science fiction.  Maybe the idea wasn't as well thought
>out as I would have liked it to have been, but it was a genuine
>*idea* ("What if there was a race that could communicate only through
>metaphor?") unlike all the hopeless dealing-with-alien-cultures
>episodes, and the episodes where the holodeck breaks down and once
>again mysteriously can't be turned off, etc.

Okay, so it's an idea.  Like most of the meagre ideas that serve as fodder
for Trek, it was undernourished and mishandled.

>>Eg, "Temba, his arms wide" is a long word for a general sort of "giving" 
>>concept.  And, at that point, an alien translator would be very unlikely 
>>to translate it as anything but that.
>
>If I were to invent an explanation for this, I'd say the problem
>is that there's no structure to this alien language.  It'd be like an
>alien walking up to you and saying, "Give".  There's be no way to
>work out (except from context) whether the alien meant "I give this to
>you," or "Give that to me," or "We should give something to him," or
>a host of other meanings.  Granted, one would assume that the translator
>would get as far as 'give', but maybe it was being misled by the
>*apparent* structure of "Temba, his arms wide".

This doesn't make much sense.  Language is a tool; having a language "with
no structure" is like having a political system "with no structure" or a
tractor "with no structure".  There's got to be some structure, no matter
how primitive, chaotic, or obscured.  In your example, there is a
structure; it's just one that places a lot more emphasis on context than
on grammar.

Now it might be interesting to have a situation where the structure of a
language has broken down, as if the entire society where struck with
aphasia (a serious speech disorder).  The results would be apocalyptic but
potentially interesting.

>Since they've never really specificed how the Universal Translator
>works, it's hard to pinpoint what situations would cause it to break
>down.  I was willing to grant them that one premise because I thought
>it was an interesting idea.

Like I said, there should be a lot more trouble with the "universal
translator" than there is.  But scenarios built around communication
difficulties, although frequent enough in human history, are apparently
tough to dramatise, judging by the lack of them in tv, film, and fiction.

>If only I could learn to accept the fact that Klingons, Vulcans,
>Romulans, humans, and all other humanoid races can breed without
>intervention.

Is it made clear that they do?  AFAICT, ST goes into such little detail on
reproduction that any one of a vast number of possibilities exist, many
of which allow for arbitrary cross-breeds.  Maybe you and your mate simply
submit your genotypes to a reproductive agency, specify features you
*don't* want ("She can't have my narrow hips or my mate's crooked nose"),
and let them work out the details.  (Anyone remember the Bloom County from
a zillion years back where Opus dreams about his future married life?)

That's another big problem with Trek:  The cultural nitty-gritty is so
little discussed, I have difficulty envisioning what their society is
actually like.

-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
