![]() ![]() Within the very first minute of Arrival, we watch the life and death of Louise’s daughter Hannah in a presumable “flashback,” even though the girl has yet to live.įor basic understanding, linguistic relativity refers to a concept in linguistics and cognitive science that suggests language can affect a person’s perception and cognitive worldview. Yet, this is exactly at the root from which Ted Chiang’s short story and Eric Heisserer’s screenplay have sprung from. Like many 21st century linguists, she views this double-named concept-paradigm (which is also first raised in the film by Ian) as naïve and impossible. Sapir-Whorf is mentioned briefly in the film when Louise first starts having her breakdowns. And to be precise in the 2016 film’s case, Arrival is also the specific product of ideas related to linguistic relativity (aka the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis), proving that intellectual curiosity is its own kind of superpower. In fact, it is in many ways a spiritual companion piece with Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar since it’s about intelligent people going through familiar sci-fi tropes before offering heady concepts about fifth dimensional space and/or time manipulation. ![]() The kind that actually try to solve problems instead of punching or shooting them. ![]() Arrival is a challenging piece of science fiction, blessedly meant for adults, and about smart grown-ups at that. ![]()
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