#lcc10 Israel A. C. Noletto - Paratextual Fictional Languages for Characterisation and World-Building

details & slides: https://conlang.org/lcc10/#noletto
speaker: YouTube @israelnoletto, Twitter @IsraelNoletto, email israelnoletto@ifpi.edu.br, https://tinyurl.com/israelnolettoifpi

Different notions of the narrative or literary functions of fictional languages have been proposed (see Tolkien 2016, Stockwell 2006 and Cheyne 2008). Elsewhere, informed by stylistics and narrative theory, I proposed a 5-part model for reading fictional languages in science fiction, comprising the following narrative functions: speculative, rhetorical, descriptive, diegetic, and paratextual (Noletto 2022). This last function stems from the notion of paratext advanced by Genette (1980), which addresses textual elements found outside what is typically considered the narrative discourse – glossaries, primers, maps, etc. In this paper, I present the partial findings of an ongoing case study on the short short story 'Outros 500' (2000) by Brazilian writer Antônio Luiz Monteiro Coelho da Costa. This e-narrative describes an alternate history in which Brazil did not become a colony of Portugal. The writer stylised the story as a chronicle and explored paratextual materials (a primer and a glossary of the Abajeheŋa language) for characterisation and worldbuilding purposes. Deploying my model of fictional languages, I highlight key stylistic features of the short story’s paratexts that may impact interpretation and the reading experience.

References

Cheyne, R. (2008) ‘Created languages in science fiction’, Science Fiction Studies 35 (5): 386-403. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25475175
Costa, A. L. (2000). 'Outros 500'. In Scarium Magazine. https://www.scarium.com.br/outros-500-antonio-luiz-costa/
Genette, G. (1997) Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation (trans. J.E. Lewin). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107784321 & 9780511549373, OCLC 867050409 & 1164178648. Available at archive.org, WorldCat, & Amazon.
Halliday, M. A. K. (1994). An Introduction to Functional Grammar (2nd edn.). London: Arnold. ISBN 0340574917, OCLC 31152299. Available at archive.org & WorldCat
Kress, G. & van Leeuwen, T. (2001). Multimodal Discourse: The Modes and Media of Contemporary Communication. London: Arnold. ISBN 9780340662922, OCLC 46694668. Available at archive.org & WorldCat
Noletto, I. A. C. (2010). Glossopoese: O Complexo e Desconhecido Mundo das Línguas Artificiais. São Paulo: Biblioteca 24horas. ISBN 9788578936303. Available at Google Books.
Noletto, I.A.C. (2022) Language Extrapolation. Glossopoesis in Science Fiction. (Unpublished PhD thesis). Federal University of Piauí, Teresina. http://repositorio.ufpi.br:8080/handle/123456789/3215
Norledge, J. (2022). The Language of Dystopia. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9783030931025, OCLC 1343119021. Available at WorldCat & Google Books.
Stockwell, P. (2006) ‘Invented language in literature’, in K. Brown (ed.) Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (2nd edn), Oxford: Elsevier, pp.3-10. https://www.academia.edu/719000/Invented_language_in_literature
Tolkien, J.R.R. (2016) A Secret Vice (eds D. Fimi and A. Higgins). London: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0008348090. Available at LCS Lending Library, WorldCat, & Amazon.

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