Time and Translation: The TARDIS and the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
“No, no, that’s the TARDIS’ translation circuits. Just makes it look
like English – speech, as well. You’re talking Latin right now.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
“I just said ‘seriously’ in Latin! . . . What if I said something in
actual Latin, like ‘vene, vidi, vici’ – my dad said that when he came back from
football – if I said vene, vidi, vici to that lot, what would it sound like?”
“I’m not sure – you certainly think of difficult questions, don’t you?”
“I’m gonna try it.”. . .
“What does he mean, Celtic?”
“Welsh. You were speaking Welsh.”
- Tenth Doctor and Donna Noble, The Fires of Pompeii, Series 4, Episode 3
In
the British television show, Doctor Who,
the Doctor’s signature vessel is a blue, 1950s-era Police Call Box capable of
traveling through space and time. It carries the distinction of being one of
the most iconic images of any television show, and the show itself is one of
the longest-running shows, disappearing briefly in the 1980s to be revamped in
the 2000s. One of the numerous talents of the TARDIS is the ship’s telepathic
capability to access the minds of the Doctor’s companions, translating the
various foreign, historic, and alien languages they come across.
According to the Sapir-Whorf
Hypothesis of Linguistic Relativity, the background linguistic system of a
group is “not merely a reproducing instrument for voicing ideas but rather is
itself a shaper of ideas” (Salzmann 2007:53). How, then, can the TARDIS fully
translate alien languages, if it does not also translate the underlying
cultural nuances that exist within the culture? Here, we will apply the Sapir-Whorf
Hypothesis as presented by Salzmann to the TARDIS to examine how the
translation circuit may function in a sociocultural world.
The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
Sapir,
writing before Whorf, believed that language was a historical coincidence – “if
it were not so, how could it happen that peoples of different physical types
speak the same language or closely related languages and that peoples of the
same or similarly physical type speak a variety of different and completely
unrelated languages”(Salzmann 2007:50)? At a meeting in New York, Sapir read,
Language is a guide to “social reality.” Though language is
not ordinarily thought of as of essential interest to the students of social
science, it powerfully conditions all our thinking about social problems and
processes. Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in
the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the
mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for
their society . . . The fact of the matter is that the “real world” is to a
large extent unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group. No two
languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same
social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct
worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached. [Salzmann
2007:52]
Sapir did not
believe that language and culture were intrinsically related, but that changed with
Whorf’s analysis.
Whorf,
building off of Sapir’s work, began as a chemical engineer. His interest in
linguistic relativity probably began during his work for a fire insurance
company, noting the differences in behavior around barrels labeled “gasoline
drums” and those labeled “empty gasoline drums,” hinging on the societal
implications of the word “empty” without accounting for the still-present
gasoline fumes that could be lit through a carelessly-tossed cigarette
(Salzmann 2007:53).
An
essential part of the hypothesis is that language provides a way for humans to
organize nature into concepts and ascribe significances to different parts, and
that users of markedly different grammars must come to different views of the
world. He came to these conclusions by studying the languages of the Hopi,
noting that the Hopi had more variable words for “vibrations” and no words,
forms, or expressions relating to linear time (Salzmann 2007:54-5). When he
compared Hopi to western European languages, he found differences in linguistic
structure for habitual thought and behavior, with Hopi analyzing reality in
terms of subjective and objective events whereas European languages analyze
reality in relation to time and schedules (as seen in the variety of tenses
relating to past, present, and future) (Salzmann 2007:55).
It
is highly likely that Whorf overstated his belief, but for this paper we will
function under the belief that language and culture are intricately related in
some way to shaping a culture’s worldview.
The Doctor and his TARDIS
It
is important to note here the major plot of Doctor
Who. The show follows the adventures of a mysterious alien known only as
the Doctor, belonging to a (by the revamped series) now-extinct race known as
the Time Lords. As the Doctor is capable of regenerating whenever he takes
fatal damage, his multiple incarnations are referred to by number, starting
with the First and now on the Eleventh. The Doctor selects companions who
travel with him and often affect the plot of the episodes and who sometimes take
on far more important roles as the season progresses.
As previously
mentioned, the TARDIS is one of the most iconic images on television. “TARDIS”
is actually an acronym: it stands for the phrase “Time and Relative Dimension
in Space,” a ship capable of transporting its occupants to any point in space
and time using the space-time vortex (Roberts 2002). It is often referred to as
being “bigger on the inside,” a phenomenon explained by the various Doctors as
the ship being trans-dimensional: that is, the inside of the ship exists in a
different dimension than the outside. All TARDISes possessed a circuit known as
a “chameleon circuit,” allowing them to blend in with their surroundings (Wiki:
TARDIS). The Doctor’s TARDIS’ chameleon circuit malfunctioned after leaving
1963 London, after which it continued to materialize in the shape of a police
box. The Eleventh Doctor explained that the circuit was working, but
Every time the TARDIS materializes in a new location,
within the first nanosecond of landing, it analyses its surroundings,
calculates a twelve-dimensional data map of everything within a thousand-mile
radius, and then determines which outer shell would best blend in with the
environment. And then it disguises itself as a police telephone box from 1963.
[Wiki: The Doctor’s TARDIS]
The
TARDIS is described as an organic starship, indicating that it has intelligence
and a personality. On various occasions, the Doctor’s is described as
“sentimental,” “stupid,” his “old friend,” “dear,” and “you sexy thing,” the
Doctor often calling it “she” and “her.” The TARDIS can develop a prejudicial
fear towards some companions, including the time-locked Jack Harkness and the
paradoxical Charley Pollard. It is insinuated that the Doctor has a distinct
mental link with the vessel, allowing the ship to assist him in his various
regenerations and invoking a physical response when it was near destruction
(Wiki: The Doctor’s TARDIS). The bond is created when a TARDIS is gifted to a
Time Lord, involving the detection of an artificially engineered gene known as
the Rassilon Imprimature. This allows the TARDIS to develop a bond with its
pilot, enabling only the pilot to control it (Roberts 2002).
TARDISes,
including the Doctor’s, were used by the Time Lords to transport goods and
personnel due to the spaciousness of the interior (it is still unknown just how
large the Doctor’s TARDIS is), sightseeing or touring (the Doctor’s primary
application), observing universal events, as a power source for experiments,
visiting future or past words (the Doctor’s other application) and conducting
scientific research (Roberts 2002).
The
translation circuit is an often-ignored part of the TARDIS, allowing for the
instantaneous translation of most written or spoken languages. There are
several contradictory indications of how the translation circuit works. It does
appear that the Doctor himself is part of the circuit, as seen in The Christmas Invasion (Series 2,
Episode 1, aired 2005). In this
episode, when the Doctor entered a coma due to a post-regenerative crisis, his
current companion could no longer understand the language of the invading
Sycorax (The Christmas Invasion). The
Forth Doctor indicated that the circuit was a “gift of the Time Lord” and the
Seventh Doctor explained that there was a telepathic field, limited to a
certain radius around the TARDIS, but when the TARDIS reactivated aboard the
Sycorax ship all humans were capable of understanding their language even
though the Doctor was unaware of their presence (Wiki: Translation Circuit; The Christmas Invasion). It may be that
the Doctor was capable of changing who was able to take advantage of the
circuit; or, that the TARDIS itself determined the circumstances and individuals
to be included inside it. It is also indicated that the circuit translation
slightly modifies peoples’ minds, enabling them to understand the languages
without registering that they are not speaking their primary language. The
circuit also possesses a swear filter, seen at least in Only Human and possibly in The
Christmas Invasion when the Doctor apparently slipped into the Sycorax
language (Wiki: Translation Circuit; The
Christmas Invasion).
There
are noted issues with individuals speaking multiple languages – Elizabeth
Klein, a native German speaker, required the circuit to communicate with the
Doctor, and Vincent van Gogh assumed that the Eleventh’s companion Amy was also
from Holland because of her accent (Wiki: Translation Circuit, Vincent and the Doctor (Series 5,
Episode 10, aired 2010)). Also unknown is how often the Doctor needed to take
advantage of the circuit himself. Due to his vast intelligence and longevity,
it is possible that he merely learned multiple languages and was capable of
speaking them freely. There are few times where it was noted that he was unable to speak or read a language: the Vrill,
who communicated via pheromones (Wiki: Translation Circuit), the wall writing
in The Impossible Planet (Series 2,
Episode 9, aired 2006), which was supposed to predate time itself, and possibly
the native language of the Judoon, which the Doctor spoke at the Shadow
Proclamation (The Stolen Earth,
Series 4, Episode 13, aired 2008). That, however, could have been the result of
the Shadow Proclamation’s rules, and the Doctor may have been looking for a
favorable ruling or concealing his words from Donna. However, in the case of
the Vrill, the TARDIS was still able to communicate, meaning that the languages
it can probably not translate are the native Judoon (The Stolen Earth), the language on Krop Tor (The Impossible Planet), and written Gallifreyan, the language of
the Time Lords (The Time of Angels,
Series 5, Episode 4, 2010; The Pandorica Opens,
Series 5, Episode 13, aired 2010). Why the TARDIS does not translate Gallifreyan
is unknown.
The TARDIS and Linguistic
Relativity
The
question remains, then – why is it so easy for the TARDIS to translate language
and still seem to import the underlying culture?
In
The Christmas Invasion, while the Tenth Doctor is undergoing the
aforementioned regenerative crisis, the language of the Sycorax is only
understandable through intensive translation as the circuit in the TARDIS
appears to be broken. Rose, his current companion, is unable to translate the Sycorax
language. The Prime Minister’s assistant is only able to translate with
“maybes” and “possibly,” stating in one translation that the Sycorax leader
might be stating “cattle” instead of “people.” However, the translation does
seem to be successfully indicating the insinuated tribal structure of the
Sycorax, able to indicate that the aliens believe that they now “own” humans and
lay claims to Earth, even ending with what appears to be a chant: “Sycorax
mighty, Sycorax strong, Sycorax rock.” Later in the same episode, the TARDIS
translation circuit once again begins to function as the Doctor comes out of
his coma. The TARDIS continues to translate the underlying tribal insinuations
as the Sycorax leader speaks of destroying Earth and enslaving humans (The Christmas Invasion).
In
The Stolen Earth (Series 4, Episode
13, aired 2008), the Doctor and Donna Noble travel to the Shadow Proclamation
to seek help in locating Earth after it was moved by the Daleks. Upon their
arrival at the Proclamation, they are confronted by the galaxy’s
police-force-for-hire, the Judoon, whom the Doctor had met in a previous season
with companion Martha Jones. The TARDIS does not translate the native language
of the Judoon, prompting the Doctor to speak to them in their tongue. This may
have been deliberate, however: he may have been observing unwritten rules
against telepathic communication within the Proclamation or in order to hide
his words from his companion and therefore, this cannot be truly examined as a
potentially untranslatable language by the TARDIS.
In the
two-part episodes The Sontaran Stratagem and
The Poison Sky (Series 4, Episodes 5
and 6, aired 2008), while direct intervention of the TARDIS’ translation
circuit is not entirely indicated, the Doctor’s previous companions (Martha and
Donna) are capable of understanding the Sontaran language. Somehow, Luke
Rattigan is also capable of understanding Sontaran despite never having encountered
the TARDIS – this may be because he is of genius-level intelligence, however,
and may have been implanted with some sort of technology by the Sontarans
allowing him to communicate with them. Either way, this is again indicative of
some sort of translation ability of the TARDIS itself, at least for the
Doctor’s companions, including sociocultural nuances.
In
the episode directly following those two, The
Doctor’s Daughter (Series 4, Episode 7, aired 2008), neither the Doctor nor
his two companions (Donna and Martha, again) are capable of understanding the
speech of the Hath, but the aliens seem capable of reading human body language
such as nodding, head shaking, and raised hands as a sign of surrender. This
may be indicative of their close presence to humans and adaptation of those
signals. Why the TARDIS could not translate their base language, however, is a
mystery.
Lastly,
we mentioned previously that the native written language of the Doctor and
other Time Lords was untranslatable by the TARDIS. In The Time of Angels, the Eleventh Doctor and Amy are traveling
through a museum where they stumble across a “home box” with graffiti in Gallifreyan.
The writing is not translated by the TARDIS, requiring the Doctor’s verbal
translation. The same thing occurs in The
Pandorica Opens, where the TARDIS does not translate the Gallifreyan
written on the cliff on Planet One. However, before the destruction of
Gallifrey, the TARDIS did not have difficulty translating spoken Gallifreyan.
It is unclear why the TARDIS would not translate the written language of the
Time Lords, but would translate the spoken tongue.
There
are also some languages that are considered far too complex to be translated to
English, such as the language of the Sittuun (written Gallifreyan may be
amongst them), and the Doctor admits to having problems explaining time travel in
English (Wiki: Translation Circuit).
Conclusions
In
the instances where the TARDIS’ ability to translate languages is made clear, it
seems apparent that is capable of translating both the base cultural indicators
along with the language itself, disregarding morphemic structure. Clearly
indicative of this is how the Time Lords (in this case, the Doctor) are capable
of explaining the rudimentary system of time travel to their companions. It is insinuated
that Gallifreyan must have a different linguistic structure where time is
concerned, similar to the differences between Hopi and European time lexicons,
in order to allow their culture to time travel. The Doctor, while finding it
difficult, is capable of explaining time travel to his companions through the
use of phrases like “we will have been here before” and describing time as a
“wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey” ball. It is clear that the Doctor himself has
difficulty understanding the concepts of time and schedules as enforced by
European languages, once returning a companion after twelve months rather than
the previously assumed twelve hours (Aliens
of London, Series 1, Episode 4, aired 2005), returning to Madame du
Pompadour after her death (The Girl in
the Fireplace, Series 2, Episode 5, aired 2006), or returning to Amy Pond
eleven years after he told her he would return in five minutes (The Eleventh Hour, Series 5, Episode 1,
aired 2010). This could be due to, if the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis is correct, a difference
in the way the Time Lords needed to view time in order to travel the way they
did. The Time Lords, required to see time as in flexural rather than in linear
terms, would not have the same concept of appointments or scheduled time as
speakers of European languages.
The
TARDIS, and Doctor Who in general,
therefore seems to support that languages do have an underlying link to the
cultural morphemic structure, even if it is at its most basic level. The
different alien cultures seem to have an underlying structure translatable
through their language, although it could also be a byproduct of other cultural
tells. However, neither the Doctor nor his companions ever seem to have difficulty
determining cultural nuances from the translated speakers, even when hearing
them outside their native language. This, and the existence of languages that
cannot be translated, indicates that the TARDIS translation circuit is capable
even of translating basic cultural morphemic and lexical structure that the
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis says should exist.
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