My life in books

Aliens and Linguists: Language Study and Science Fiction, Walter E. Myers

Walter Meyer’s book, published in 1980, is and overview of the use of the science of linguistics in science fiction. As Meyers notes:

Recent years have seen a number of introductory critical works bent on discussing the “science” of science fiction, to shoe how the field achieves that alchemical mix of art and science that is its distinguishing characteristic…. But we notice a gap in works of this kind: they neglect linguistics.

Meyer goes on to discuss the irony inherent in the lack of interest in the use of linguistics in a genre that places so much emphasis on communication – not only within the works of the genre, where first contacts and other challenges to communication are prominent, but also in the nature of the genre as, at least in part, a genre in which "what if" scenarios are used to propose and explore and communicate ideas, speculations, theories, thought experiments, cautionary perspectives or future possibilities.

Meyers looks at how both the ideas and theories of linguistics, and the technical specifics of language formation production, and development, are used in a wide variety of classic science fiction (and fantasy) texts and for a number of different purposes.

It’s an interesting way to look at many of these older texts, and I enjoyed the new perspectives that reading this book gave me on some familiar (and not-so-familiar) works - even though it is occasionally disappointing to discover that a book that seemed so insightful on precisely these issues of language and communication (to a layman reader such as myself) is in fact riddled with inaccuracies (as is my beloved childhood favourite, Samuel Delaney’s Babel-17).