Medium Theory and Pontypool

    In the movie Pontypool, speech as a medium and orality as a practice of communication create the possibility of the virus, exclusively with the English language, because of the attributes speech has as a medium, the idea of oral repetition and understanding in people's minds, the differences in linguistic meanings between languages. We know speech and hearing are linked with the sharing of knowledge, culture and meaning. Through this auditory medium, we create a shared understanding of this shared information. Speech draws listeners into understanding certain meanings which embeds ideas into people's minds. In Pontypool, the virus exploits this shared understanding so as soon as the listener understands the words being spoken, they are infected. After infection the person repeats words or sounds over and over again, this repetition, we learn, is likely the body’s reaction to fend off the virus. As we repeat words over and over, they become just a constructed sound and begin to lose their understood meaning. This highlights the idea of the importance of every word holding a meaning and understanding within itself. Because speech is an extension of our thoughts, it links an understanding between the speaker and listener, which is how this virus is transferred. When a word becomes infected, the word itself and its understood meaning become carriers of the virus. So why is it that when the characters speak French, they are able to avoid the virus? Since the virus is only infecting the English language, communication in any other language is considered safe. Every language has slightly different meanings assigned to words and phrases. Or has culturally constructed phrases that don't exist in others, and vice versa. Even in English, a single word can have different meanings. Since English has its own specific differing meanings and understandings to words, it only affects those specific words with those meanings. Once things are translated, words and meanings shift slightly, speech is often translated based on meaning rather than word for word because there are different understandings associated with words in different languages. The virus only infected English and its specific meanings, understandings, and reality, and so other languages don’t become infected.