Gallagher, Ron (1986) Science fiction and language : language and the imagination in post-war science fiction. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

This study examines the claims for a privileged status for the language of science fiction. The analysis of a series of invented languages, including 'nadsat', 'newspeak' and 'Babel-17', establishes that beneath these constructions lie deep-seated misconceptions about how language works. It is shown that the various theories of language, implicitly or explicitly expressed by writers and critics concerned with invented languages and neologism in science fiction, embody a mistaken view about the relation between language and the imagination. Chapter two demonstrates, with particular reference to the treatment of time and mind, that the themes on which science fiction most likes to dwell, reflect very closely the concerns of philosophy, and as such, are particularly amenable to the analytical methods of linguistic philosophy. This approach shows that what science fiction 'imagines' often turns out to be a product of the deceptive qualities of the grammar of language itself. The paradoxes of a pseudo-philosophical nature, in which science fiction invariably finds itself entangled, are particularly well exemplified in the work of Philip K. Dick. Chapter Three suggests that by exploiting the logically impossible, by making a virtue of the tricks and conventions which have become science fiction's stigmata (time-travel, telepathy, etc.), Dick indicates a means of overcoming the genre's current problems concerning form and seriousness. In conclusion it is demonstrated through the work of J. G. Ballard, that any attempt to throw off science fiction's 'pulp' conventions is likely to lead the genre further into the literary wilderness.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General)
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Science fiction -- History and criticism, Discourse analysis, Literary, Linguistics in literature, Language and languages -- Philosophy, Dick, Philip K. -- Criticism and interpretation, Ballard, J. G., 1930-2009 -- Criticism and interpretation
Official Date:	March 1986
Dates:	Date Event March 1986 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Beaver, Harold Lowther ; Nash, Chris
Format of File:	pdf
Extent:	262 leaves
Language:	eng

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