Communication is key, and that is true in all aspects of life from relationships to societies. Language has dated back as far as the earliest civilizations of mankind, and it a crucial part of everyday life. Imagine trying to talk to someone without using any words, and the simplest phrases and commands become difficult to communicate. Now picture it on a larger scale, imagine trying to run a country or communicate with foreign diplomats, but no one can understand a word you are trying to say. This is a huge problem in works of literature and media such as Star Trek: The Next Generation or Octavia Butler’s short story Speech Sounds. These two-story lines have different outcomes of how the future plays out, but the role of communication and language in both is very important to the plot of the story. In Star Trek: The Next Generation, the episode “Ensigns of Command” brings up the idea of how the two species’ language is different. In the beginning of the episode you do not notice much of a struggle …show more content…
This is the case in Octavia Butler’s Speech Sounds which is the story of a post-apocalyptic world where everyone has lost their ability to speak. After years with the impairment the people can no longer understand English even if they saw it, “She wanted to tell him, but she shook her head sadly. She had lost reading and writing… She ought to know how to point out Pasadena even though she could not recognize the word” (Butler 6). The main character Rye is trying to get to Pasadena to find her family, and comes across a man with a car and an ability to read unlike any others. Since this trait is such a rare one to have in this new world Rye immediately becomes jealous of the man. This all provides evidence that this world is a very dystopian environment, there is no order at all and it is basically a free for