2017 高三下开学第一课课件.pptVIP

Plot summary The story is narrated by Dr. Louise Banks, writing in the past tense. After a race of aliens, known as heptapods (due to their 7-pointed radially symmetrical appearance), initiate first contact with humanity, the military hires Dr. Banks to discover their language and communicate with them. The story revolves around Dr. Banks and Gary Donnelly, a physicist also working for the military to gain knowledge of physics from the aliens. The heptapods have two distinct forms of language. Heptapod A is their spoken language, which is described as having free word order and many levels of center-embedded clauses. Understanding Heptapod B, the written language of the aliens, is central to the plot. Unlike its spoken counterpart, Heptapod B has such complex structure that a single semantic symbol cannot be excluded without changing the entire meaning of a sentence. When writing in Heptapod B, the writer knows how the sentence will end. The phenomenon of Heptapod B is explained by the aliens understanding of mathematics and Fermats principle of least time. Dr. Banks understanding of the heptapods writing system affects the way she perceives time and suggests a deterministic universe where free will is exercised by not affecting the outcome of events. A frame for the story, written in the present tense, indicates that the story is being written at the time of the daughters conception. The sections describing the daughters life from birth to death and beyond, are written as Dr. Banks reminisces and yet she describes it while using the future tense, because learning Heptapod B enables Dr. Banks to know her daughters entire life even before she agrees to conceive her. As the story proceeds, we see Dr. Banks and Dr. Donnelly growing closer until it is clear that Dr. Donnelly will be the father of her child. “If you immerse yourself into a foreign language, then you can actually rewrite your brain.” Sapir—Whorf Hypothesis萨皮尔—沃尔夫假说 “The language you speak determines how