The Whale Song Translation: A Voyage of Discovery To Neptune and Beyond (7 page)

“The place reminds me of my small-town community college,” remarked Greg, “low-rise and compact.”

“It’s definitely not as glitzy as SoCalSci, but this is laid-back Hawaii. Very cool roof designs.”

“Polynesian inspired.”

Dmitri and Greg were attired like any of the students scurrying off to their classrooms, having changed into shorts, sandals, and
DIVE MOLOKINI
souvenir T-shirts at the conclusion of their cruise. Stopping to examine an artsy, oversized campus map, hand painted onto the side wall of a two-story, white stucco structure, they followed the directions to a modest, whitewashed bungalow. A plaque mounted on the front door indicated it was the University of Hawaii’s Experimental Speech Lab.

Melanie’s face brightened with delight when they entered the lobby. “You’re right on time,” she said, greeting each of them with a spirited handshake.

Dmitri hoped this first contact wouldn’t be the last time he’d feel her touch. Framed by a window overlooking a tropical garden, she looked even lovelier in the daytime.

“So how did you enjoy your Molokini cruise?” she asked, eyeing their T-shirts.

“As awesome as the PICES whale watch,” replied Greg.

“I try to do it every year.” She smiled at Dmitri. “How was it for you?”

Mildly bemused, he wondered if she intended the double entendre. “We thrilled to the giant cetaceans rocketing from the deep blue sea.”

“So poetic,” Melanie replied with that signature tilt of her head.

“Really, we were so inspired by the humpbacks we decided to visit PICES headquarters. We might be analyzing whale songs. I’d like to tell you about it.”

“Sounds intriguing. It’s possible we have something in common. Let me show you how we analyze the voices of children with hearing loss.”

The night before last, Melanie had been cloaked in a plain white lab coat. Following her down a short corridor, Dmitri cast more than one admiring glance at her hip-hugging jeans and silky, floral blouse. In her wake, he inhaled a distinctive essence, like a subtle lavender and sandalwood potpourri. They entered a classroom bustling with activity yet surprisingly silent.

With a sweeping gesture of her arm, Melanie said, “So here we are. We’re very proud of our modest UH Experimental Speech Therapy Lab.”

Dmitri surveyed the utilitarian chamber. A gallery of black-and-white photos of smiling children’s faces graced the cream-colored walls and suggested the room’s personality. An unusual scene at the front of the room attracted his attention. A bobbed brunette, tastefully tattooed, and about the same age as one of his graduate students, stood in front of a wall-mounted whiteboard, semi-encircled by the desks of eight elementary-school-aged pupils. As her head arced back and forth, her shoulders swayed and her hips undulated, her hands danced a pas de deux, and her fingers embroidered an intricate web of shapes into the fabric of the air. Her deftly coordinated movements, intermingled with occasional darting gestures to drawings on the whiteboard, spoke to her students as meaningfully as any lecturer.

Language as choreography, thought Dmitri. As the room pulsed with her silent intensity, he was startled by a chorus of children’s laughter, like joyous music, erupting from the void. The youngsters’ eyes were riveted to their teacher, whose movements had become more percussive. Like a boxer, she bounced, dipped, and jabbed her visual communiqué. The students chortled in response to each dramatic thrust. Melanie laughed along with the children.

Once the room had quieted down, Melanie motioned to her right, toward the near wall. Dmitri observed two brown-skinned boys, pre-teens who looked like brothers, and a younger bespectacled girl with long, blond hair. The three youthful subjects wore headset microphones and sat in front of computer workstations. They spoke into their microphones and peered intently at their monitors as figures were plotted in real time. To Dmitri, the shapes on the screen looked like the innocuous scrawls of a child.

“This brings back memories,” said Greg. “I was trained in pronunciation using a similar but more rudimentary program.”

“I didn’t realize you were hard of hearing,” Melanie replied. “Your pronunciation is extraordinary.”

Greg’s tanned face glowed with an ivory grin. “I’m pretty fortunate to have some residual auditory function, so it’s only a problem in a noisy setting. Luckily, my training began when I was even younger than your students.”

Dmitri scratched his head. “Will someone please clue me in?” His words were muted.

“You don’t have to lower your voice in here.” Melanie waved a thumb, hitchhiker style, toward the children. “Let me show you.”

She brought them over to one of the training consoles, surprising the boy there by patting him on the shoulder. He glanced up, his eyes brimming with affection. “Hi, Ms. Mari. I’m ready for my lesson.” His voice sounded labored and off-key.

“I’d like to introduce you to Javier. He’s one of my best students.” Melanie deliberately shaped each word for lip-reading purposes and simultaneously gestured with both hands. She extended an arm toward her adult guests and then resumed signing. “Javier, this is Dr. Dmitri and Dr. Bono from California. Would you believe Dr. Bono was trained using an early version of the Speakeasy system and now teaches mathematics at a famous school?”

Javier stood, greeting them with brown eyes full of curiosity. He seemed shy and self-conscious. He addressed Greg in a mumbling voice while he signed. “I want to be a teacher like you someday. I know it takes lots of practice, but Ms. Mari has spent major time with me.”

“Javier,” said Melanie. “Let’s show Dr. Dmitri how we use Speakeasy to train for correct pronunciation.” As the boy settled down in his chair, Melanie pointed at Javier’s computer monitor. “The figure displayed on the screen is called a target word gram. It’s a visual representation of the primary frequencies of the unique sequence of vowels and consonants comprising an English language word. Each word gram picture corresponds to a different word.”

“Except for homonyms?” said Greg.

“Yes, very good,” she replied. “Words that sound alike, such as ‘to,’ ‘two,’ and ‘too’ have the same shaped word grams. The word gram currently displayed on Javier’s monitor shows the target frequencies for the correct pronunciation of the word ‘you’ that, as you just mentioned, would look the same as the word for a female sheep.”

“It’s just a straight line,” said Greg.

“Correct,” said Melanie. “‘You’ only consists of two vowels, ‘ee’ and ‘oo,’ which are connected by a straight line on the plot. Words consisting of many vowels and consonants have more complex word gram shapes.”

“I’d love to see the shape for ‘antidisestablishmentarianism,’” said Dmitri, his tone roguish.

Melanie gazed up at the ceiling, mouthing silently while she counted with the fingers of both hands. She stared at him with a look of triumph. “That’s twenty-seven vowels and consonants. More than a match for Dr. Bono’s mathematical expertise.”

“Touché!” replied Dmitri, wowed by the speech therapist’s cerebral savoir faire. She answered with a playful bow. “By the way, just call us Greg and Dmitri.” He cast a knowing glance at Greg. “We’re not titular. Please continue.”

“No problem.” Melanie smiled and rested her hand on the student’s shoulder. “As Javier speaks into the microphone, the computer will analyze the frequencies of his voice in real time and plot those as it draws the shape of his spoken word gram. When Javier’s word gram shape finally matches the target word gram, he’ll know his pronunciation is correct. Since he can’t hear his own voice, he doesn’t receive the audio feedback cues that allow hearing-enabled speakers to make instantaneous adjustments for correct pronunciation. Visual feedback, however, provides the deaf with virtually the same information.”

Greg raised a hand. “What are those icons displayed around the borders?”

“These correspond to simpler training tasks, stepping-stones to the more sophisticated word-gram-based program. Javier can select these training options with a click of the mouse. For instance, he can initiate a video close-up of a person’s face pronouncing the same word. He can zoom in to observe facial features such as of the lips or jaw.”

“What about the rest of the vocal tract?” asked Greg.

Melanie reached for the desktop mouse and clicked on one of the icons. “This diagram shows the varying positions of the teeth, tongue, lips, velum, jaw, and the vocal cords. Javier can freeze the frame to study the details for positioning his own vocal tract articulators.”

Melanie signaled to Javier with the traditional Hawaiian “hang loose” shaka sign, her thumb and pinky finger extended and the three middle fingers curled. Javier scrunched up his face, uttered his first muffled attempt, and then sighed. The plot of his vocalization, as it appeared on the monitor, clearly didn’t match the target shape. It pained Dmitri to see the boy’s mask of frustration. Javier took a deep breath and spoke again. The boy’s smile and the shape of the word gram confirmed the results. Two successive attempts resulted in improvements of pronunciation and shapes that converged more closely to the target word gram.

As the Speakeasy system translated the youngster’s thoughts into images on the display, Dmitri was reminded of the speech bubbles and thought balloons hovering above the heads of the characters in the comics. When the shape of Javier’s next word gram looked nearly identical to the target, the display lit up like a pinball machine, flashing a colorful smiley face. The boy turned to face Melanie, his face radiant. She squeezed his shoulder.

“Excellent, Javier.”

Dmitri congratulated Javier with the mainlander’s version of the thumbs-up sign and then turned to Melanie. “That was a very impressive demo, Ms. Mari. The visual representation of the target frequencies is very clever. Do you have the time to describe some of the technical details of Speakeasy’s translation from audio to visual mode?”

“I anticipated your question.” She waved across the room, and her young colleague approached them. “I’d like to introduce my associate, Erika. I’m sure you noticed she’s a dynamite speech teacher. Erika, these are the SoCalSci professors I told you about, Dmitri and Greg.”

Dmitri immediately recognized the signs of Greg’s interest in Melanie’s associate, as his gaze fixated on the colorful tattoos of flowers, birds, and butterflies gracing her bare arms and shoulders. The golden ring embellishing Greg’s left ear struck Dmitri as a faint echo of Erika’s sparkling, silvery ensemble: treble-pierced, hooped earrings accented by diminutive lip and nose rings.

“Melanie’s right about your teaching technique.” Greg’s voice bubbled with congeniality. “Your body language is extraordinary. What’s your secret for tickling the children’s funny bones?”

“Humor is a matter of trust.” Erika’s tone was surprisingly businesslike. “They respond when you’re open, not afraid to make yourself vulnerable.”

“How so?”

“I recited examples of embarrassing gaffes I’ve committed when signing.”

“Erika’s going to sub for me with Javier and his group while we have that talk about Speakeasy,” said Melanie. “Thanks, Erika.”

“Nice meeting you.” Erika waved goodbye.

Greg and Dmitri followed Melanie across the room. They stopped and stood in front of a whiteboard mounted on the opposite wall. With Melanie in the center, the two men flanked her with elbow room to spare, close enough for Dmitri to appreciate the fragrant breeze when she shook the tangles from her lustrous, black hair.

“Since you gentlemen are tech-savvy, let’s review the rules for constructing a language. It’s the best way to understand the principles of the Speakeasy system.” With a big smile, Dmitri handed her a marker pen. “Thank you, and please tell me if it’s too tedious.”

“Not at all,” said Dmitri. “It’s been years since my Linguistics 1A course, and I’ve completely forgotten the material. A refresher course is much appreciated.”

“Same for me,” said Greg.

“Okay. The symbols for both written and spoken languages have similar structure and function.” Melanie shook the pen as she punctuated each point. “If we examine the written word first, we can gain insight into the foundations of spoken language. You probably know the human brain processes about twenty times more visual than auditory information?”

Dmitri perked up. “Hey, I know where you gleaned that factoid. Dolphin researcher John Lilly cited the same ratio for dolphins, except the roles are reversed. They process about twenty times as much sound information as visual.”

“Actually, I didn’t know that. It’s curious, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Those ratios indicate that sounds play the same primary role in whale and dolphin communications as visuals do in our own culture.”

“Quit interrupting.” Greg’s tone wasn’t very collegial. “I thought I signed up for Melanie’s Linguistics 1A class.”

Dmitri felt his face flush. Greg’s ultra-arched eyebrow confirmed that he considered whale communications a taboo conversational topic. “Greg’s right.” Dmitri shrugged. “A lecturer’s bad habit. Please continue.”

Melanie hesitated, looking first at Greg, then Dmitri. “Okay. So the building blocks of language are words. These, as you know, are the abstract symbols representing our thoughts about things and ideas. In our written language, we assign a unique symbol to each word. There are two options for encoding these written word symbols. One approach is pictorial, like the ideograms of the Chinese written language.” With confident strokes, she drew a Chinese character on the board. “There’s a relationship between the shape of the symbol to what it represents. Can you guess this one?”