TY - BOOK ID - 78146849 TI - Language in science fiction and fantasy PY - 2010 SN - 1282874462 9786612874468 1441141065 9781441141064 9781282874466 9781847063014 1847063012 9781441145482 1441145486 PB - London New York Continuum DB - UniCat KW - English language KW - Style, Literary. KW - Discourse analysis, Literary. KW - Science fiction KW - Fantasy fiction KW - Literary discourse analysis KW - Rhetoric KW - Literary style KW - Literature KW - Style, Literary KW - Language and languages KW - English literature KW - Style. KW - History and criticism. KW - Style KW - Metrics and rhythmics KW - Germanic languages UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:78146849 AB - 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. 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. ER -