29.2529, Sociolinguistics in Space: Firefly

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-29-2529. Thu Jun 14 2018. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 29.2529, Sociolinguistics in Space: Firefly

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Editor for this issue: Nils Hjortnaes <nils at linguistlist.org>
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Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2018 10:22:37
From: LINGUIST List [linguist at linguistlist.org]
Subject: Sociolinguistics in Space: Firefly

 
Dear LINGUIST List Readers,

It’s time for more Linguistics in pop culture! Today I’ll be talking a bit
about the show Firefly and the language used in it. Firefly takes place about
500 years in the future, when humanity has colonized another star system with
hundreds of planets and moons, many terraformed for human habitation. The show
follows a mixed crew from several walks of life in a small smuggling ship as
they take whatever jobs they can get to keep flying. It’s a fantastic, unique
blend of western and sci-fi which does a great job of focusing on the
characters and world instead of just being another flashy fight scene riddled
action show. If you like flashy fight scenes, don’t worry, it does have them.
Firefly is a beloved cult classic for sci-fi enthusiasts and it is well worth
your time (and your linguistic interest!)

Spoiler Alert: While I won’t be talking about main plot points, there will be
some spoilers

There are a couple linguistic things I want to talk about in Firefly. First up
is the use of Mandarin Chinese in the show. Over the course of the series we
often see the characters using Chinese to swear or insult others. While these
are the most common uses, others do come up, such as pet names or terms of
endearment. In the context of this airing on TV, it’s pretty obvious that Joss
Whedon, the creator of the show, used this as a way to get around censorship.
Other nonsense words, such as gorram, were also added for the same purpose.
Within the universe, however, there is a bit more to dig into. Firefly
establishes that the two superpowers which sent colony ships to the new star
system from “Earth that was” were the US and China. In addition, most people
are bilingual in English and Chinese as a consequence, though everyone still
use English the vast majority of the time on the planets visited in the show. 

What I find really interesting about this setting is how Whedon actually pays
some attention to the impacts culture and history have on language. It is, of
course, too much to expect that a show emulates 500 years of language change
in its speech, especially considering that it would be almost unintelligible
by that point anyway. But I appreciate that Firefly does more than just have a
bunch of sci-fi sounding tool names and phrases. The inclusion of small
Chinese phrases, whether insults, swears, or pet names, indicates thought
given to the linguistic aspect of the universe beyond giving another species
their own language. 

The other major aspect of the language in Firefly I want to talk about is the
dialectical difference between Core world speakers and border planet and Rim
speakers. People from the Core world tend to speak very grammatically and
formally. Dr. Simon Tam, Inara, and Shepherd Book are good examples of this,
all being raised on Core worlds. Inara, being born on a primarily Chinese
planet, would be a second language speaker of English, but taught by other
Core world speakers. Speakers from the Rim and the border planets, however,
use a stigmatized dialect similar to that of stereotypical American Frontier
speech. The entire culture of the frontier worlds is based on the wild west,
and this less formal dialect is where Chinese and slang terms for spaceflight
invented for the show tend to be used. Some notable features of this dialect
are -ly dropping, g dropping, double negatives, and ain’t. Several examples
taken from the show can be found here.
http://firefly.wikia.com/wiki/Dictionary

While the costuming and set design make a very clear distinction between the
richer Core worlds and the poorer border planets, the differences in language
add a lot of authenticity to the universe. Dialectical differences are used
all the time to make judgments about people, whether consciously or
unconsciously, and the addition of the elaborate dialects, phrases, and jargon
to Firefly enabled us to relate to and understand the characters much better.
It was, in my opinion, an absolutely crucial element of world building. Were
everyone speaking the same dialect, the characters would have felt much more
flat and uninteresting. Anecdotally, Firefly serves as a great example of how
important linguistics is to the development of a show which cannot be left
out, especially in sci-fi or fantasy worlds. 

Thanks for listening to my ramblings on one of my favorite shows. If you
haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it, despite it having been cut far too
short by Fox. 

The LINGUIST List staff is passionate about investigating the ways that
linguistics interacts with human culture and media. We rely on funding from
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the mission of the global linguistics community.

Thanks once again!
Nils Hjortnaes







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LINGUIST List: Vol-29-2529	
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