如果外星人來了 我們怎麼與他們交流呢?

Many scientists believe that alien civilisations exist. So let's imagine that we suddenly stand face-to-face with members of an alien species. What would we do first?

很多科學家相信外星文明確實存在。那麼來想象一下，當我們突然面對某一外星物種時，首先要做的是什麼？

Surely communicating that we come in peace would be a priority. But would we ever be able to understand each other?

當然，首先要做的是與其和平交流。但是我們能夠聽懂他們說的話嗎？

The one thing we can be confident about exchanging with aliens is scientific information. If the laws of the universe are the same everywhere, then different descriptions of these laws should, in principle, be equivalent.

我們可以確定的一件事情即是：與外星人交流的是科學信息。如果宇宙規律在每一個地方都是一樣的，那麼對這些規律的不同描述在原則上應該是相同的。

Matters are more complicated when it comes to language, which is the single most important factor in human cooperation.

當提及語言時，事情會變得更爲錯綜複雜，它是人類合作的一個最重要因素。

Can we expect to learn such an alien language? Existing perspectives in the psychology of language give two very different answers.

我們能夠學習外星人的語言嗎？語言心理學現有的觀點給出了兩個截然不同的答案。

The generativist approach, which holds that the structure of language is hardwired into the brain, suggests this wouldn't be possible. It argues that humans come with an inbuilt universal grammar that has a specific number of settings – each corresponding to the acceptable order in which words and parts of words can be arranged in a given language system.

生成語法學家的方法認爲，語言結構是固定在大腦裏的，這表明人類無法掌握外星人語言。它認爲人類天生就有一個內置的通用語法，其具有許多設定--每一個對應的是可接受的語序，單詞和單詞的組成部分可在某一特定語言體系當中連接起來。

Though the rules of human languages can and do vary, proponents of the generativist model argue they can only do so within strict parameters. For generativists, it is extremely unlikely that an alien species would happen to have the same parameters as human beings.

雖然人類語言的規律能夠也確實可以改變，但是生成語法學家模型的支持者堅持認爲，他們只能夠在嚴格的參數內進行。對於生成語法學家來說，外星人碰巧與人類有着相同的參數是非常不可能的事情。

The cognitive view, on the other hand, sees semantics (structures of meaning) as being more important than syntax (structures of grammar). For this reason, proponents of the cognitive view argue that grammar alone is not enough to understand language.

另一方面，認知觀認爲語義學（意義結構）比句法學（語法結構）更爲重要。因此，認知觀的支持者認爲單有語法不足以理解語言的。

If an alien species manipulates objects, interacts with its peers and combines concepts, the cognitive approach therefore predicts there might be enough mental architecture in common to make its language accessible to humans. Though these results are far from conclusive (for instance, they can't explain why humans alone seem to have language), the evidence leans towards the cognitive account.

如果外星人能夠操作事物，與夥伴交流並且整合觀點；那麼，認知方法可預測外星人有足夠的共同心理結構來和人類進行交流。雖然這些結果還遠沒定論（比如，他們無法解釋爲何只有人類纔有語言），但是有證據支持認知解釋。

So, it might be reasonable to assume that humans could learn alien languages.

因此，假定人類能夠學習外星人的語言是合理的。