Wizje pierwszego kontaktu w perspektywie komunikacyjnej (przypadek Ślepowidzenia Petera Wattsa oraz Historii twojego życia Teda Chianga)
Visions of first contact from a communication perspective (the case of Blindsight by Peter Watts and The Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang)

Summary/Abstract: First contact is one of the most common themes in science fiction. The situation of a human meeting with representatives of a alien civilization, although often presented in a trivial way, is for many authors a pretext for philosophical reflection on the place of man in the universe, his communication abilities and the limits of knowledge. The fatalismthat dominates in cultural representations of first contact, regarding the inabilityto communicate with a stranger, is particularly visible in Stanisław Lem’s prose. In workssuch as Fiasko, Głos Pana, or Solaris, man is faced with complete strangeness and doomedto communication failure. The aim of the article is to analyze the communication situationin selected science fiction texts – the novel Blindsight by Peter Watts and the shortstory The Story of Your Life by Ted Chinag. Both authors problematize the first contactin terms of language and communication. Watts addresses the issue of the importanceof self-awareness in the process of effective communication, using the Chinese roomargument. Chiang, on the other hand, uses the theory of linguistic relativism (Sapir--Whorf hypothesis), which states that the language we use affects our perception of reality.

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