SF's Extension of Semiotic Possibilities in Language

Delany—in his equally famous and oft-cited definition of science fiction—argues that science fiction is characterised by an extension of semiotic possibilities in language: that is, he argues that words can simply mean more in science fiction than they can in realist fiction. Delany sees this as a function of the heightened realism of SF, and the materialisation of metaphor involved therein: he uses the phrases “Then her world exploded” and “He turned on his left side” to demonstrate this extension of meaning. In “mundane fiction,” he writes, the first phrase only makes sense as “an emotionally muzzy metaphor about the inner aspects of some incident in a female character’s life,” while the latter would imply “some kind of masculine, insomniac tossings.”36 In SF, however, the first phrase could additionally mean that the woman’s planet was just blown up, while the second could reference a cyborg “activating the circuitry on his sinistral flank” (88).37 This expansion of signification is added to what Csicsery-Ronay, Jr. calls the “fictive neology” of SF: “Readers of sf,” he writes, “expect to encounter new words and other signs that indicate worlds changed from their own.”38 In this he includes, importantly, the visual and sound effects of contemporary SF cinema.

Jason Haslam, Gender, Race, and American Science Fiction: Reflections on Fantastic Identities (2015)

• critical theory
• science fiction