Required Novels:
C. J. Cherryh  Foreigner
Elgin, Suzette Haden Native Tongue
Hopkinson, Nalo   Midnight Robber
LeGuin, Ursula  Always Coming Home
Moon, Elizabeth Remnant Population
Russell, Mary Doria  The Children of God
Russell, Mary Doria  The Sparrow
Amy Thomson The Color of Distance

Required not novels:
Delaney — “Science Fiction and Racism”
Elgin, Suzette Haden — Laadan grammar
Elgin — LAadan morphology problem
Hardman, MJ — Derivational Thinking packet
Ursula K. LeGuin — Introducing Myself
Ursula K. LeGuin Appendix to 25th anniversary edition of Left Hand of Darkness
Women and Language — issue on women constructed languages

Required stories:
LaTasha Farmer “Yamanja”
LeGuin, Ursula K.. “Winter’s King”, in two versions
Tiptree, James Jr. The women men don’t see / Houston do you read

Media:
Video tape: Suzette Haden Elgin The Universal Translator
 Video tape: Suzette Haden Elgin Language in Native Tongue
Videotape: Darmok (Star Trek)
grammar &audiotape of Klingon
SHE Láadan tape
Audiotape of Kesh for Always Coming Home
Wiscon audiotape: Language includes / langauge excludes
Wiscon audiotape: Did Elgin get it right?
Linguistics and Science Fiction and Women’s Studies (also transcribed)

Languages looked at:
Láadan  Klingon Esperanto Loglan
Kraith / Vulcan  Kesh Vulcan Lojban
languages used in the novels

Abstracts from Meyers and other articles:
Chap 1 The Godlike Science and SF (Pippin)
Chap 4 Resident Aliens: Monkeys and Marine Mammals (Andrews)
Chap 6 Take Me to Your Leader (Thorp)
Chap 8 Plausibility vs the Automatic Translator (Meadows)
Chap 9 Avoiding the Boring Stuff (Green)
Chap 10 A History of Linguistcs in Science Fiction (Kacinko)
Chap 11 A History of Linguistics and Science Fiction II (Hawes)

Armitt, Lucie. "Your Word Is My Command: the Structures of Language and Power in Women's Science Fiction." in Where No Man Has Gone Before: Women and Science Fiction, ed. Lucie Armitt (Andrews)
Barnes, Myra Edwards ‘The Language of Thought Control’ in Linguistics and Languages in Science Fiction-Fantasy 1974 New York, New York, Arno Press Pages 140 - 170 (Green)
Hockett Charles How to Learn Martian The View From Language: Selected Essays 1948-19 (Pippin)
LeGuin, Ursula K. “The Author of the Acacia Seeds and Other Extracts from the Journal of the Association of Therolinguistics” in Carr, Terry, ed. The Best Science Fiction of the Year #4 1975 New York: Ballantine Books (Hawes)
Russ, Joanna “Another Addict Raves About K/S” Nome 9 Edited by: Clark, Victoria H.  Storey, Barbara L.B. (Meadows)

Novels abstracted:

Arnason, Eleanor A Woman of the Iron People (Lambert)
Butler, Octavia E.  Parable of the Sower (Thorp)
Cherryh, C.J. Inheritor (Pippin)
Cherryh, CJ Invader  (Pippin)
Elgin, Suzette Haden Native Tongue II: The Judas Rose (Green)
Elgin, Suzette Haden Native Tongue III: Earthsong (Green)
Hopkinson, Nalo Brown Girl in the Ring  (Andrews)
LeGuin,Ursula The Left Hand of Darkness (Meadows)
Le Guin, Ursula K. The Telling  (Meadows)
Vance, Jack The Languages of Pao (Kacinko)
Slonczewski, Joan   A Door into Ocean (Hawes)
Thomson, Amy Through Alien Eyes (Hawes)
 

Resources

Tiptree Awards website:
http://www.tiptree.org/index.html

Láadan website:
http://www.interlog.com/~kms/Laadan/
leads to ST languages, etc.

Website for Suzette Haden Elgin
http://www.adrr.com/lingua/index.htm#current
Linguistics and Science Fiction
  OCLSPost Office Box 1137,
 Huntsville Arkansas (AR)  72740-1137
 $15.00 a year.  The Newsletter is edited and written by Dr. Elgin.

Vulcan website:
http://www.ludwig.ucl.ac.uk/st/StarTrek/Vulcan/Vulcan.html

Klingon website:
http://startrek.miningco.com/msub75.htm?pid=2833&cob=home

Ursula K. LeGuin
http://www.ursulakleguin.com/

Constructued human languages
http://www.quetzal.com/conlang.html

Carl Brandon Society
http://www.carlbrandon.org/home.html

OSCLG
http://www.womenandlanguage.org/

U of Michigan Fantasy & SF website (symbolism)
http://www.umich.edu/~umfandsf/
 

Encodings for Láadan

Green
lanebid nervousness for a friend; a feeling of
     uneasiness because a friend is about to do something;
     anxiety because a friend is feeling anxious
     lan - friend
     bid - nerve
mInashada feeling content after doing a favor
    without being asked
     mIna - compassion
     sha - harmony
     da - case marker: beneficiary (voluntarily)

Andrews
óoyashishid to trust a person not in the family
     óoya - heart
     shishid - to be united
rasholan- to not be alone yet feel lonely
     ra- - non, not
     sholan - to be alone

lhezhubOoya- feelings either positive or negative that continually gnaw at you in  spite of yourself, a nagging conscience; for instance having a 'soft spot' for a person who wronged you terribly,
     lhezhub- noxious insect
     Ooya- heart

Pippin
ebedihA noun. "academic" literally 'the science of being a learner'
     e . bedi . h . A
     e-               the science of
     bedi          to learn
     -h-             to follow the rules concerning canonical shape CVCV
     -A              ajentive: "doer"
delishemelahama "to cry in the ocean"
     For this encoding I used an excerpt from Le Guin. Page 162 states,
     "What does it mean to cry in the ocean? Oh, well, you know, to add
     something where nothing's needed, or where so much is needed that it's no use even trying, so you just sit down and cry..."
     to weep          delishe
     ocean             mela
     -ama              futility (from second noun declension)
     I used the verb 'to weep' with the noun 'ocean'. After much consideration, I selected the suffix -ama from the secend noun  declension. I could find no better way  to express futility. -ama is associated with futility with a reason. I didn't necessarily plan to express if there would be a proper reason associated in the action of "crying in the ocean" but the matricies in the grammar do not allow for  only futility. I considered adding to the matrix of the second noun declension but decided against it because it would alter the grammar.

Hawes
 Èmehena - ({-ehena} = despite negative circumstances) - protective
     feeling for someone once known well, but no longer  -- for ex.: a
     childhood friend
     ·hena - ({-hena} = despite negative circumstances) - responsibility that
     the bearer struggles with, but is grateful for
    mehara - ({-ara} = with reason and blame, but is futile) - feeling toward people one  has become disassociated with as a result of other choices, but not willingly    --  for ex.:  if you choose to do something your friend doesn't agree with, & they stop talking to you because of it, but you never fought with or disliked the person, "mehara" is the feeling you have for them after the fact when you think back about the friendship, a combination of many other feelings.

Kacinko
rahobeyalashon/rahobeyalazh The love (either purely sexual or more etherial in  nature) based on the idealization of someone/something which deep down you know is false.
     rahobeyala - "fool's gold" + ashon "love for one not related by blood, but
     kin of the heart" / azh "love for one sexually desired now"
wemenehishama The need for moving forward when your surroundings remain  locked in the past.
     wemen - "spring" + hish "snow"

Meadows
lEelolAado wEshahoyahAyawith
     /lEe-/prefix meta-, connoting "beyond or above," in this case/lolAado/
     "to perceive internally"/-o/state of consciousness morpheme "in
     meditation"/wEsha/"gestalt"/-h-/used between two consecutive
     vowels/oya/"skin or flesh"/-h-/used between two consecutive
     vowels/Aya/beauty/with/woman or person (can be changed to "withid," or
     "man," depending on the speaker)/
     This phenomenon of perception is both unconditioned and reflective.  It
      is unconditioned to the extent that it connotes a spontaneous physical
      attraction to another person (and I mean to be totally superficial—being
      attracted, at least in the beginning, only to someone’s physical
      characteristics).  The feeling is also reflective to the extent that the
      perceiver recognizes the attraction as one of aesthetic wholeness: the
      individual characteristics themselves are not attractive (to this
      particular perceiver) but their synthesis is.  In other words, a
    perceiver discovers an aesthetic appreciation outside of what would be
     her own standards of conventional beauty.  Because these particular
     stimuli are rare, they often effect feelings of the sublime (or at least
     feelings that approach the sublime).
lEethamemelotheramerahitheha
     /lEe-/ prefix meta-, connoting ‘beyond or above,’; in this case/’tham’/  ‘circle‘; (I‘m using this word loosely to connote ‘;circumference‘; or  ‘;finite‘;)/-e-/used      between  consecutive consonants/meloth/‘;evidence‘;/-e-/used between consecutive  consonants/ram/ ‘;presence‘;/-e-/used between consecutive  consonants/rahith/‘;darkness‘;/-e-/used between consecutive
 consonants/-ha/place ending/
     This is an intuition that one has when lying in the dark next to someone
      and knowing that that person is awake, although there aren‘t any
      discernable (physically perceptible) signs of such.
 
 

1. "Linguistics is our best tool for bringing about social change and SF is our best tool for testing such changes before they are implemented in the real world, therefore the conjunction of the two is desirable and should be useful."  Suzette Haden Elgin 1996.  Take this quotation and consider the course in this light.  To what degree do you agree? or disagree?  Support your arguments with specific data.

2. We have looked worldview imaged in SF created languages.  Consider the materials of the course and discuss what we have learned in this endeavor.  What success (or lack thereof) have these created languages had?  Why?

3. We read works where linguistics and/or language factors are major plot devices.  Discuss the success of these plot devices in terms of linguistics/linguists per se and in terms of contributing to the quality of the novel, etc.  You may want to include the linguistic gaffs that some authors made, and how they added into the mix, as well as successful and accurate presentations of linguistics.

4. We have looked at how SF writers in English manage to construct worlds where derivational thinking, basic to English, does not function.  Considering the materials of the course, how successful have our authors been?  In what ways were they successful and in what ways did they fail?

5. In all of the books we read this semester, we have seen how the characters' belief schema and hierarchical mindsets have been turned inside out, and how terribly shortsighted and unprepared we could be for situations and cultures that do not fall into our preconceived notions.  This problem is deepened when we consider what forces determine the social constructs that we might try to force on new or different cultures. Describe  instances from the books we have read where belief systems or contact protocol or other social constructs fail in the face of new culture and explain how and why they fail.

6. The "Native Tongue" of Suzette Haden Elgin, the "Sparrow" and "Children of God" of Maria Doria Russell and LeGuin’s "Always Coming Home" each respectively have two languages embodying contrasting worldviews: LAadan with English/Panglish, Ruanja with K'San and Kesh with Condor. Suggest how linguistic features of these languages correspond to the societies in which they are used, and compare (not necessarily rank) the treatment of the matter by each of the three.

7. Discuss the specific grammatical features of the various languages that we have looked at.  Look at phonology.  What was accomplished by the varying phonologies?  Look at the grammatical structures.  What was accomplished by having the specific grammatical structure that each language had? Which specific linguistic traits would likely bring about a significantly different world view in LAadan, Ruanja, Klingon, Atevi, or any other languages we have studied.

8. How did the materials of the course illustrate the various points and theoretical constructs presented in Meyers and in the articles we read?  How did these readings/discussions contribute to your understanding and appreciation of the fiction? Include especially the audio and videotapes
 

9. Discuss the materials of the course in the light of the Derivational Thinking packet.  You may wish to consider both those that went beyond DT and those that, by writing in a different light, made our own DT obvious, whereas it is normally below the level of perception.

10. How has this course changed the way you speak and think? Has your linguistic or other behavior or your perception of others’ linguistic behavior changed? Be sure to mention how at least specific writers have helped you to question and understand derivational thinking.

11. Consider the constructed languages that we've studied and the explicit/implicit constructions of worldview that are particular to this language in terms of characters wandering from book to book. This is an imaginative exercise, so don't feel limited by the plot constructions of particular novels or by the discussions we've had in class. In other words, feel free to extrapolate and to imagine (based on some specific evidence, of course) things like the medical ethics of a society of native LAadan speakers or the aesthetic intuitions of the Kesh people. Anything goes as long as there is some bit of evidence that you can refer to and associate from. Write from the perspective of any character we've read about who is not a native member of the society you imagined earlier. As a doctor, how would Anne engage with the medical ethics of a LAadan society? How would Sofia Mendez first react to Kesh ecological philosophy? How would Ofelia fit into Kesh society?  What if Bren and Emilio met? What if Nazareth met a Tendu? Or ...?  Play with the possibilities.  Pay especially close attention to the fact that most but not all of the female human protagonists come from derivationally-based societies.