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“There was much new to grok”: an analysis of word coinage in science fiction literature

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Published/Copyright: November 10, 2023

Abstract

As can be witnessed in projects such as The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction (Prucher, Jeff. 2007. Brave new words: The Oxford dictionary of science fiction. Oxford: Oxford University Press), science fiction has been fertile ground for the creation of new words and concepts. Whereas the aforementioned dictionary was constructed by eliciting examples and citations from volunteers, this paper presents an initial foray into data-driven methods for uncovering lexis unique to science fiction. Words unique to science fiction texts are extracted by comparing a science fiction corpus against the British National Corpus (BNC Consortium. 2007. The British National Corpus, XML edition. Oxford Text Archive. http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12024/2554 (accessed 29 June 2022)) to produce a list of 306 neologisms from 74 texts. In addition, this study seeks to examine the ways in which authors impart the meaning of such words to the reader, drawing on frameworks of semantic word relations and work in cognitive linguistics. This reveals the use of definitions and glosses by the authors, both in narration and direct speech, co-occurrence with synonyms, and the drip-feeding of attributes pertaining to the concept being referenced. In addition, characters can be shown to struggle with the concepts to which neologisms refer, allowing authors to explore themes of alienation and other-worldliness.


Corresponding author: Matt Gee, Birmingham City University, Birmingham, UK, E-mail:

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Professor Antoinette Renouf and colleagues for their work in constructing the corpus used in this study.

Appendix

See Table 2.

Table 2:

The books that make up the science fiction corpus (SFC).

Title Author Year first published Number of words
News from Nowhere Morris, William 1890 49,755
The Time Machine Wells, H. G. 1895 32,606
The War of the Worlds Wells, H. G. 1898 60,522
The Land Ironclads Wells, H. G. 1903 8,405
A Modern Utopia Wells, H. G. 1905 87,402
Finis Pollack, Frank L. 1906 4,022
As Easy as ABC Kipling, Rudyard 1912 10,329
We (English translation by Gregory Zilboorg) Zamyatin, Yevgeny 1924 64,506
The Metal Man Williamson, Jack 1928 4,838
Brave New World Huxley, Aldous 1932 65,330
A Martian Odyssey Weinbaum, Stanley G. 1934 10,365
Night Campbell, John W. 1935 8,187
By His Bootstraps Heinlein, Robert 1941 20,995
Desertion Simak, Clifford D. 1944 4,496
The Piper’s Son Padgett, Lewis 1945 10,076
The Monster van Vogt, Alfred E. 1948 6,652
The Sentinel Clarke, Arthur C. 1948 3,807
1984 Orwell, George 1949 103,967
I, Robot Asimov, Issac 1950 71,760
The Second Night of Summer Schmitz, James H. 1950 10,255
The Voyage of the Space Beagle van Vogt, Alfred E. 1950 74,098
Second Dawn Clarke, Arthur C. 1951 12,299
The Day of the Triffids Wyndham, John 1951 92,125
Crucifixus Etiam Miller, Walter M. 1953 7,425
Fahrenheit 451 Bradbury, Ray 1953 47,022
The Tunnel under the World Pohl, Frederik 1954 11,499
The Naked Lunch Burroughs, William 1959 62,071
Guardians of Time Anderson, Poul 1960 11,275
Stranger in a Strange Land Heinlein, Robert 1961 213,767
The Ballad of Lost C’Mell Smith, Cordwainer 1962 7,591
Billenium Ballard, J. G. 1962 5,977
The Man in the High Castle Dick, Philip K. 1962 80,657
The Rest of the Robots Asimov, Issac 1964 51,651
Semley’s Necklace Le Guin, Ursula K. 1964 7,577
Who Can Replace a Man Aldiss, Brian 1965 3,237
How Beautiful with Banners Blish, James 1966 3,907
A Criminal Act Harrison, Harry 1967 5,259
Problems of Creativeness Disch, Thomas M. 1967 9,008
2001: A Space Odyssey Clarke, Arthur C. 1968 61,265
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Dick, Philip K. 1968 63,454
The Left Hand of Darkness Le Guin, Ursula K. 1969 87,234
Ubik Dick, Philip K. 1969 68,220
How the Whip Came Back Wolfe, Gene 1970 5,959
To Your Scattered Bodies Go Farmer, Philipe J. 1971 77,294
Cloak of Anarchy Niven, Larry 1972 7,634
A Thing of Beauty Spinrad, Norman 1973 6,085
Walk to the End of the World Charnas, Susie McKee 1974 74,268
The Female Man Russ, Joanna 1975 69,499
Woman on the Edge of Time Piercy, Marge 1976 140,676
The Screwfly Solution Sheldon, Raccoona 1977 8,389
Motherlines Charnas, Susie McKee 1978 78,428
Alien Foster, Alan D. 1979 68,976
Shikasta Lessing, Doris 1979 161,590
The Way of Cross and Dragon Martin, George R. R. 1979 7,409
The Marriages between Zones Three, Four and Five Lessing, Doris 1980 99,630
Burning Chrome Gibson, William 1982 7,960
Neuromancer Gibson, William 1984 80,933
Silicon Muse Schenck, Hilbert 1984 8,043
The Handmaid’s Tale Atwood, Margaret 1985 94,360
Aliens Foster, Alan D. 1986 78,577
A Gift from the Culture Banks, Iain M. 1987 6,496
Cleaning Up Banks, Iain M. 1987 5,749
Descendant Banks, Iain M. 1987 8,309
Karl and the Ogre McAuley, Paul J. 1988 6,039
Road of Skulls Banks, Iain M. 1988 1,599
Odd Attachment Banks, Iain M. 1989 2,017
Piece Banks, Iain M. 1989 3,020
The State of the Art Banks, Iain M. 1989 34,305
Swarm Sterling, Bruce 1989 9,678
The Difference Engine Gibson, William 1990 140,059
Piecework Brin, David 1991 10,485
Alien 3 Foster, Alan D. 1992 57,707
Red Mars Robinson, Kim Stanley 1992 213,794
The Furies Charnas, Susie McKee 1994 121,206

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Received: 2023-01-11
Accepted: 2023-02-24
Published Online: 2023-11-10

© 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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