LINGUIST List 23.2947: Books: The Language in Science Fiction and Fantasy: Mandala (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Mullins, Bill AMRDEC]

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> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
> Dan Goodman
> Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2012 10:22 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: LINGUIST List 23.2947: Books: The Language in Science Fiction and
> Fantasy: Mandala
>
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Dan Goodman <dsgood at IPHOUSE.COM>
> Subject:      LINGUIST List 23.2947: Books: The Language in Science Fiction
> and
>               Fantasy: Mandala
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> -
>
> Date: 04-Jul-2012
> From: Ellena Moriarty <Ellena.Moriartybloomsbury.com>
> Subject: The Language in Science Fiction and Fantasy: Mandala
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> Title: The Language in Science Fiction and Fantasy
> Subtitle: The Question of Style
> Published: 2012
> Publisher: Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd
>                  http://www.continuumbooks.com
>
> Book URL:
> http://www.continuumbooks.com/books/detail.aspx?BookId=168762&SearchType=Basic
>
> Author: Susan Mandala
> Paperback: ISBN: 1441145486 9781441145482 Pages: 192 Price: U.K. £ 24.99
> Abstract:
>
> Please note: This is a new edition of a previously announced text.
>
> The language of science fiction, and of fantasy, has a steep challenge: that
> of the creation of other worlds, societies and characters that are alien
> to us in
> diverse and fundamental ways, but still compelling and knowable. This
> exciting book steps away from the issues of race, gender and politics that
> have saturated sci-fi and fantasy criticism. Rather, it challenges two
> widely
> held but poorly substantiated beliefs circulating about science fiction and
> fantasy - that they are a) written in plain and unremarkable prose and
> b) apt to
> present characters that are flat types rather than fully realised
> individuals.
>


It would be very difficult to demonstrate the truth or falseness of these two assertions.  There are works with plain prose, and works with florid prose.  (I would say that her first issue is backwards -- to me, the stereotype of SF/F language is that it is overwritten.  Consider Lovecraft, Robert E Howard, typical pulp writing, Tom Swifties, etc. -- not noted for "plain language".  One of the reasons that Robert Heinlein made such an impact was his naturalistic style of writing.  But he was the outlier, not the standard.)  There are flat characters, and there are three-dimensional characters.

For every example the author offered to support her thesis, it would be trivial to offer a counter-example.


> Mandala draws on traditional syntactic categories of stylistic analysis
> as well
> as the relatively more recent pragmatic and sociolinguistic paradigms such
> that the original analyses here take our understanding of these two genres
> beyond the usual confines, to consider how language is used to draw
> alternative words, represent the far future and distant past, and create
> psychologically believable characters.
>
> Covering both British and American fiction and television, this is a wide-
> ranging and perceptive book.
> --
> Dan Goodman
>
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