Dystopian wor(l)ds: language within and beyond experience

This thesis examines language in a range of modern and contemporary dystopian literary fiction, and argues for a reinterpretation of Whorfian linguistics as a means of advancing understanding of the dystopian genre's acknowledged propensity to influence the habitual world-view of its readership. Using close stylistic analysis, and with an emphasis on textual patterning, it identifies and examines two distinct and characteristic `languages' of dystopia, and considers the ways in which these discourses contribute to linguistic relativity as a dynamic process in the reading of these fictions. Chapter one defines more precisely the literary genre of dystopia, particularly in relation to notions of space and time, and emphasises the genre's necessary participation in the socio-historical circumstances of its conception and production (the site of a discourse here termed reflective language). The (re)placement of these environments in a futuristic setting is also examined and is shown to be marked by a second discourse, termed speculative language. Chapter two outlines the theoretical foundations of the study and supports its positioning at the interface between the study of language and the study of literature by drawing on theories from both disciplines to orient its subsequent analyses. In this chapter, the concept of linguistic relativity, or Whorfianism, is re-figured as a process intrinsic to the reading of dystopian narratives, and is combined with the more literary critical theory of cognitive estrangement. In order to maintain focus on the reader-text relationship, and to locate the analyses from a readerly perspective, some common, or `folklinguistic', beliefs about translatability and the `inadequacy' of language are also invoked. Chapters three, four, and five are devoted to case studies: chapter three discusses the non-Newspeak speculative language in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, and chapter four begins with an analysis of reflective language in the same novel before looking at three other twentieth-century dystopian texts (Katherine Burdekin's Swastika Night, L. P. Hartley's Facial Justice, and Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale). Chapter five brings together speculative and reflective language in its consideration of Atwood's Oryx and Crake, which also serves to bring this study into the twenty-first century. A summary and conclusions follow in chapter six

Subjectivity and social resistance: a theoretical analysis of the Matrix Trilogy

The Matrix (1999) is a science-fiction film that successfully bridges modern cinematic action sequences with philosophical parables. It recalls the tradition of philosophical elaboration through science-fiction narratives; a tradition that has existed since the time of Plato. This study aims to bridge the divide between philosophy and psychology by using a theoretical analysis to discuss and explore the ideas of social thinkers (featured in the Matrix Trilogy) and critically analyse them alongside established psychological theories. More specifically, this study provides an in-depth and critical exploration of the ways in which the philosophical works of Jean Baudrillard and Karl Marx, and the widely used and recognised psychological perspectives on human development, cognition and learning offered by both Urie Broffenbrenner and Jean Piaget to simultaneously elucidate a model of human subjectivity and development in today's techno- consumerist society with specific attention to critical resistance. This study suggests that with the rise of the internet and modern communication media; sociocultural and political issues that Broffenbrenner conceptualised as existing in the macrosystem, now have a presence in the microsystem, and correspond to Broffenbrenner's requirements as to what constitutes a proximal process. These processes, according to Broffenbrenner, have the most longstanding effects on our development and contribute the most to our personality. This study also argues that the pre-operational stage and the process of symbolisation both of which Piaget identified are important phases in the child's life that see the accrual and development of signs and discourses. These signs and discourses then contribute to the development of our mind's cognitive structures which Piaget called schema. These structures are developed as we grow and help us make sense of the world by processing information and organising our experiences. This would mean that we perceive and interpret our world through ideologically shaped mental structures. These findings stress the importance of ideological influences and their impact on development and hearken more closely towards ideas about the presence and the effects of ideology by thinkers like Plato and Marx, as well as the dystopian futures explored in science-fiction media like the Matrix Trilogy, George Orwell's 1984 (1948) and Aldous Huxley's A Brave New World (1932), and also the options for critical social resistance explored in the narratives and heroic deeds of these books and their characters

So language. Very Prescribe. Wow.

The philosophical dispute about linguistic normativity is one battlefield in a larger war over the nature of language as an object of scientific study. For those influenced by Wittgenstein, language involves following – or failing to follow – public, prescriptive rules; for Chomsky and his followers, language is a property of individual minds and brains, and the grammatical judgements of any mature individual speaker – her competence – cannot be, in any linguistic sense, ‘wrong’. As I argue here, the recent ‘doge meme’ internet fad provides surprising evidence for the prescriptivist view. Normative attitudes towards linguistic practices are a ubiquitous feature of those practices, and there is no principled basis on which to regard them as non-linguistic

Дискурс коммунизма и социалистическая языковая личность: риторический аспект

Within the conception of the Sochi Linguistic & Rhetorical School the paper argues for the idea of discourse of Communism as a cover term for the «officialese» in the Soviet Union and former Socialist countries singling out four periods of its development: origin, formation, official existence, dismantling. The article pays special attention to the heterogeneity of the longest period of the discourse's official existence, which consists of the alternating stages: rise in the revolutionary and post-revolutionary years, during war and past-war time with the expansion of the discourse of Communism to other countries; and fall with the massive reprisals of 1930s and the “stagnation” epoch. During the period of its official existence three of its facets – official, public and real – reflect contradictions between the Communist ideas imposed by the authorities and the state of the Socialist linguistic personality confronting the meanness of daily life. The paper reveals those contrasts drawing on the diaries of Olga Berggolts and Alexander Dovzhenko as well as the destinies of Mikhail Prishvin, Alexey Tolstoy and Alexander Fadeyev.Dentro de la concepción de la Escuela Lingüística y Retórica de Sochi, el artículo argumenta a favor de la idea del discurso del comunismo como un término de cobertura para los «officialese» en la Unión Soviética y los ex países socialistas que señalan cuatro períodos de su desarrollo: origen, formación, oficial existencia, desmantelamiento. El artículo presta especial atención a la heterogeneidad del período más largo de la existencia oficial del discurso, que consiste en las etapas alternas: ascenso en los años revolucionario y posrevolucionario, durante la guerra y el tiempo de la guerra pasada con la expansión del discurso del comunismo. a otros países; y caer con las represalias masivas de 1930 y la época de "estancamiento". Durante el período de su existencia oficial, tres de sus facetas, oficial, pública y real, reflejan contradicciones entre las ideas comunistas impuestas por las autoridades y el estado de la personalidad lingüística socialista que confronta la mezquindad de la vida cotidiana. El documento revela esos contrastes basados ​​en los diarios de Olga Berggolts y Alexander Dovzhenko, así como los destinos de Mikhail Prishvin, Alexey Tolstoy y Alexander Fadeyev.В русле концепции Сочинской лингвориторической школы статья обосновывает идею дискурса коммунизма, обобщающую интерпретации «официолекта» в Советском Союзе и в бывших странах социализма, и выделяет четыре периода его развития: зарождение, формирование, расцвет и угасание. Отмечена неоднородность наиболее длительного и значимого периода расцвета, который состоит из чередующихся этапов: вознесения в революционные и послереволюционные годы, в военное и послевоенное время, сопровождавшееся расширением границ дискурса коммунизма на другие страны; и упадка, с которым соотносятся массовые репрессии конца 30-х годов и эпоха «застоя». На всех этапах расцвета дискурса коммунизма его три ипостаси – официальная, публичная и реальная – отражали противоречие между коммунистическими идеями, навязываемыми властями, и состоянием социалистической языковой личности, сталкивающейся с превратностями повседневной реальности. Указанные контрасты раскрываются в статье на материале дневников Ольги Берггольц и Александра Довженко, а также на примере литературных судеб Михаила Пришвина, Алексея Толстого и Александра Фадеева

The ways of representing hidden meanings in English-language fiction discourse

The article attempts to justify the expediency of linguistic research’ direction that reveals the pragmatic qualities and cognitive basis of different types of implicit speech in English-language fiction discourse. Latent meanings in fiction text/discourse have repeatedly been the subject of research. The totality of implicit speech’ types and researched on the means that actualize it is identified. Referring the methods of cognitive linguistics, the pragmatic potential of speech means for the expression of the hidden meaning is illustrated by the prose English-language texts. The aim of this article was to identify the totality of the types of implicit speech and research on the means that actualize it in English-language fiction discourse. In this researching work, we analyzed such speech means of expressing implicit meanings as: a specific use of idioms, i.e., hints, additional nuances of meaning. Observing how innuendo is used can provide some insight into the speaker's goal when he or she chooses that discourse strategy. In conclusion, it is noticed that the hidden meaning, e.g., in the presence of an additional metaphorical transfer, may require a great deal of cognitive effort from the reader. We proved that the hint is characterized by a wealth of implicit potential

Consciousness: a Simpler Approach to the Mind-Brain Problem

No explicit model of consciousness has ever been presented. This paper defines the beginnings of such a model based in mathematicians' "implicit definition" as compounded with virtual reality. Dennett's "color phi" argument suggests the necessary extension to fit real minds. I conclude that the mind is wholly intentional and virtual

Letting Katz Out of the Bag: Cognitive Freedom and Fourth Amendment Fidelity

Emerging surveillance technologies now allow operators to collect information located within the brain of an individual, allow the collection of forensic evidence regarding cerebral and cognitive processes, and are even beginning to be able to predict human intentions. While science has not yet produced a mind-reading machine per se, the devices referred to as cognitive camera technologies are substantial steps in the direction of that inevitable result. One such technique, a proprietary method called Brain Fingerprinting, is used as an example of the strong trend towards increasingly invasive and ever more powerful surveillance methods, and provides an entrée to a discussion of the limitations, if any, that the constitution might impose on such methods. The article then outlines three basic frameworks used by the Supreme Court in its Fourth Amendment jurisprudence that might be used to determine whether official use of cognitive camera technologies would pass constitutional muster, and concludes with the suggestion that no one of the three available frameworks would create a significant obstacle to the exploitation of these techniques or to the use of the collected information in legal proceedings. The Fourth Amendment\u27s failure in this regard is demonstrated by reference to underlying, socially-constructed norms regarding freedom of thought and cognitive autonomy. The article samples the fields of social psychology and Cartesian philosophy, theology, and democratic political theory in order to weave together what may be called a social consensus on the place, importance, and substance of free and unfettered cognitive liberty - the right to be left alone in one\u27s head, the right to create a social persona using particular and unique identity vectors, and the right to think and imagine what we wish without the possible threat of observation. The inability of the Fourth Amendment to preserve that kind of freedom, which our society has always cherished, and which by consensus we agree must be protected against interference, presents an opportunity to suggest that a new orienting principle should motivate our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. The remainder of the article is spent outlining that new principle and deeply engaging the various constitutional interpretive theories that might support if not command adherence to this modified Fourth Amendment approach. The author thus seeks to make a connection between technological development, surveillance and Fourth Amendment liberty, and attends to the ways in which our burgeoning surveillance society poses a threat to the very core of what we think it means to be human

Letting Katz out of the Bag: Cognitive Freedom and Fourth Amendment Fidelity

What would life be like if it became impossible to keep a secret? We may find out with the advent of a new technology called Brain Fingerprinting and other technologies that allow access to our very thoughts. This Article first discusses the advent of technology like Brain Fingerprinting and its kin, and their impact on cognitive autonomy. The Article then posits the question, what would the Constitution have to say about evidentiary inquiries into the mind through the use of such technology? The author argues that current Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, including Katz v. United States, is inadequate to address such a question, and concludes with a call to reevaluate our understanding of the Fourth Amendment and to seek alternative methods that offer more satisfying resolution of these issues