When all the delegations to the conference arrived safely in Houston, the first post-disaster academic event began with great anticipation.

Elite representatives from all over the world gathered in the scientific community, and Houston prepared a spacious indoor venue for this event, which was comfortable and well-equipped.

The huge screen projection lit up on the wall at the front of the venue, and the scientific scholars who had been talking quietly stopped talking for a moment, and everyone suddenly began to remain quiet, partly out of polite instinct, and partly because their eyes were attracted by the projected image.

These are some grotesque drawings, and there are more than a dozen of them on the entire huge wall.

After a brief silence, the audience began to talk again.

"What is this?" Zhao Kang asked Zhang Dada, both of them were from Chongming District, and they had both worked in the Dongtan International Conference Building before, so they were more familiar with each other than other companions.

Chen Bin, Meng Jie and others were not allowed to enter the hall of the venue, because they were all non-scientific research personnel, so they could only stay in the delegation's residence.

"I feel that it is a kind of text," Zhang Dada stared at those grotesque pictures for a long time, although he was still a little uncertain in his heart, but the feeling brought by this thought was very strong.

"It is said that the content of the exchange conference is related to alien civilizations," Zhao Kang thought about it, and the information he had seen in the data brought back by Liu Jiajun came to his mind again, "How many things are the people of the United States willing to shake out this time?" ”

"Let's see what happens." Zhang Dada saw that on the podium in the conference hall, a host had already appeared.

"Hello everyone, welcome to Houston," the scholar standing on the podium was an energetic old man, judging by his dress, you will find that he is no different from ordinary scientific researchers, but no one in the audience from the elite from all over the world dares to despise this man, because he is the giant of astronomy, senior astrophysicist George Mather.

"It's him!" After Zhao Kang saw the scholars on the stage, he was surprised, "George Mather, this big man actually survived the disaster. ”

"What does he do, is he powerful?" Zhang Dada didn't know much about George Mather because he was not a linguistics person.

"Senior astrophysicist at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Golde Space Center, discoverer of the blackbody form and anisotropy of cosmic microwave background radiation, winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics." "His research and discoveries have helped mankind understand the beginning of the universe and the origin of galaxies and stars, and further supported the Big Bang theory of the formation of the universe." ”

"The Nobel Prize won by the people of the United States is a bit much," Zhang Dada smacked his lips, admiring the tall and thin old man with glasses on the stage.

"The Houston Hidden Dragon Crouching Tiger," Zhao continued, "that Dr. Mario from the Tampa Research Institute is also a Nobel laureate, and he has a profound knowledge of biology and genetics, which few people can match. ”

"It would be nice when we can have so many awesome people in Huaguo," Zhang Dada nodded, and the hard power of the United States can actually be seen from the number of Nobel Prize winners.

"Yes, maybe Brother Zhang is the next one," Zhao Kang said with a smile.

"Haha, I want to, but I'm afraid I still don't have that ability," Zhang Dada knew that Zhao Kang was joking, "I'm engaged in linguistics research, and it seems that no one has won the Nobel Prize in this field, because linguistics can't make a particularly big contribution to society, compared with natural science, it has obvious shortcomings, and compared with literature, it can't be familiar and understood by the public." It must work with other disciplines to uncover the mysteries of 'wisdom', including language. ”

"For example?" Zhao Kang asked.

"For example, computer technology, and biotechnology," Zhang Dada thought for a moment and said his understanding.

"So let's have a chance to 'combine two swords,'" Zhao Kang teased.

"What do you think of these diagrams?" George Mather didn't talk too much about everyone, but went straight to the point. He pointed to the pictures projected on the giant wall and asked the people in the audience.

Everyone was stunned for a moment, but they didn't expect George Mather to open the curtain of this academic exchange conference by asking questions.

"A trace of a nebula?"

"A work of art from an alien civilization."

……

Seeing that everyone was talking about it, George Mather smiled, intending to give them more time to think.

"If you have an answer in mind, you can raise your hand," he said to the audience.

"I still think of these grotesque drawings as a kind of text, and my instincts tell me that they are." Zhang Dada once again confirmed his thoughts, "The theme of this conference is linked to alien civilizations, so nine times out of ten, these words are alien words." ”

"Brother Zhang, then you raise your hand and say," Zhao Kang couldn't help but said anxiously when he saw that he already had the answer but didn't express it to everyone.

"Ah, let me tell you?" Zhang Dada was a little lacking in confidence, the entire conference hall was full of talents and elites, and no one else spoke, and he felt a little stage frightened.

"Yes, I don't think you have a problem with your judgment, so you can raise your hand and stand up and say, let them understand the thoughts of our Chinese people."

Zhang Dada thought for a while, and finally mustered up the courage to raise his hand.

"It's a scholar of the Chinese delegation, and you are welcome to express your opinion," said George Mather, who deduced from the appearance of the person raising his hand and the location of the person who raised his hand.

The staff at the venue quickly sent the microphone to Zhang Dada's hand, and Zhao Kang also whispered to cheer him up.

"My opinion is that these patterns are words, the words of alien civilizations," Zhang Dada's words caused a burst of exclamations in the venue, and the people around him began to discuss, some people were discussing Zhang Dada's point of view, and some people were discussing him as a person.

George Mather's eyes lit up and he stared at Zhang Dada with interest, "Please continue." ”

"Everybody can see that the pictures are moving, and they're constantly moving." Zhang Dada organized his language as he spoke, "I will call these pictures symbols for the time being, why not call them paintings, my reasons are as follows. ”

"There is a difference between linguistic symbols and painting, and the biggest difference between them is the dimension of meaning."

"Let's put it this way, language expresses meaning through chronological order, while drawing expresses meaning through spatial organization."

"As a simple example, a change in the time sequence of linguistic symbols can cause a change in meaning, for example: Smith and Joan are married; Joan and Smith are married. ”

Zhang Dada's words made some people confused, "Smith and Joan are married; Aren't the two sentences "Joan and Smith married" mean the same thing?

Just when most of the people were puzzled, George Mather laughed, nodded involuntarily, and applauded him slightly with both hands, obviously the great scientist had already heard the logic of Zhang Dada's words.

"You might think that this is the same thing at all. Of course, if you only consider the 'ideographic function' of language, then they do mean the same thing. But as I said earlier, language expresses meaning chronologically, so it has not only an 'experiential function,' but also an 'interpersonal function' and a 'discourse' function. Most of the time, we always speak to others, so our words and word order will also reflect our relationship with others - such as intimacy, affection, and so on. ”

With Zhang Dada's explanation, more and more people could understand what he meant, and some people in the audience began to applaud, and Pang Zhike, the head of the Chinese delegation, had a deeper understanding of his own member at this moment.

"If you think about it, you'll realize that Smith's friends are more inclined to use the first sentence, and Joan's friends are more inclined to use the second sentence, and each of us is the same, always giving priority to those who are closer to us first, and that's what I mean by language being chronological."

"Going back to what we just said, I said that these pictures are a language rather than a painting, and that there is some element of intuition. These patterns are constantly moving, or changing, and they feel like a swarm of insects flying, and I may call the dense dots of light in the pattern bugs. ”

"These flying points of light gave me the feeling that I was watching time flow, and I had the idea that these words are similar to but different from the words on our earth, and that our words express meaning, and this kind of words may express the scene."

"The ideograms of words or language are closely linked to the time series, so our interpretation of words can only be linear. When we are reading, we either read from left to right or from top to bottom, and it is impossible to read backwards, nor can we arbitrarily choose a point to read on both sides. When it comes to 'reading' pictures, we are not subject to this restriction. ”

"When we look at an image, we can look from the top left to the bottom right, from the top right to the bottom left, from the middle to the surroundings, or even from the surroundings to the middle. In other words, the interpretation of a picture has nothing to do with chronological order, only with spatial position, and the change in the meaning of a picture is caused by the change in the spatial position of the elements that make up the image, and is only affected by this factor. ”

A scientist in the audience raised his hand, as if there was something to say.

When Zhang Dada saw someone raise his hand, he stopped and looked at the man.

The man who raised his hand was a scholar of faith, with a turban around his head and a thick beard on his face.

"I would like to ask, why can't these patterns be something like a video file of the human world?" The scholar asked Zhang Dada.

"There is no conflict between your question and what I have just described, sir," said Zhang Dada, "and words can also describe a scene, a plot, or even a story. And I don't know if when you're recording things, do you just record things with video, or do you use video with descriptions, or do you just use text? ”