Something touched me

[EngLearner]

Source: "Door In The Woods", a movie (timestamp: 1h13m29s).

An evil spirit has abducted a couple's son and taken him to another world. They've hired an augur who's trying to help them open a portal to that world and get their son back. The three of them are standing in the forest and performing some rituals. Suddenly, it becomes completely dark, and the following conversation takes place between them:

Husband: "Evelyn!"
Wife: "I'm here. I just... Something touched me."
Augur: "Everyone stay inside the circle!"
Wife: "He grabbed my..."
Husband: "Where are you?"
Wife: "Here, I'm here."
Husband: "That's me. That's me."
Wife: "He clawed my arm."

Does the simple past sound natural here in British English? Would you be more likely to use it if you were to choose between the present perfect and the simple past?

 

[Rover_KE]

Yes and yes.

 

[EngLearner]

Source: "The Titan Find", a movie (timestamp: 1h11m22s).

A couple of men and a woman are on Titan in a spaceship. They are in a bay where they think it's safe. There's an alien creature inside the ship, too. They're thinking about how to kill it. Suddenly, an alarm goes off, and one of the men has this conversation with the woman:

Man: "What's that?"

Woman: "My god! It's a breach in life support. Damn! The fusion unit is filled with gas from Titan. It's opened one of the service docks. The pressure in Engineering has dropped. It's opened one of the doors."

Man: "It's on the move."

Woman: "It's opened another dock in F quarter C."

I'd like to compare this example with the one in post #1. Here (just as in the example in post #1) things happen in real time, and the woman comments on what's happened. What makes her choose the present perfect and not the simple past in this case? How is the situation different from the one in post #1?

 

[jutfrank]

The present perfect is used to focus more on the result rather than the past action. In the spaceship, they're worried about the consequences of the breach. The two engineers are updating the current status of what's happening.

In the context in post #1, they're saying what happened, in the past.

Remember this: if a speaker uses the present perfect, they're talking primarily about the present. If they use the past simple, they're talking about the past.

 

[EngLearner]

I found this thread on another forum. A British English speaker commented there that if she was sitting in the grass, and something like an ant bit her, she would say:

Something's bitten me.
I've been bitten.

The circumstances in this case are identical to those in post #1, but the speaker chose the present perfect tense here.

 

[5jj]

Fine.

 

[jutfrank]

The circumstances in this case are identical to those in post #1, but the speaker chose the present perfect tense here.

Yes. I presume you're asking a question here.

By using the past tense, the speaker is presenting the action as a past event. Okay? So if it's a tiny little bite, from an ant, for example, it's likely that many people would not take this too seriously. The bite is something that happened in the past and has no connection to the present, apart from the fact that it's worth mentioning.

But if the speaker uses the present tense, she's presenting a present situation. She's talking about the present, not the past. Why might she do that? Well, it's becasue she wants to say that the action has some kind of relevance to the present time. She's more interested in the effect (the wound) than the event. Maybe she's worried that she's going to die and she wants the listener to take action. Or maybe she just wants some attention.