Selfless Language

Abstract

The literary theoretical concepts of the Self and the Other represent an ontological dichotomy at the core of how we experience reality—who are we, and who is everyone else? Understanding this dichotomy means we understand, or at least acknowledge, the role we occupy as conscious, meaning-making beings. Two works of speculative linguistic fiction seek to upset this standard by presenting fictional alien languages whose speakers are incapable of perceiving or understanding the dichotomy. The first, Samuel Delany’s Babel-17, presents a space opera fueled by a language with a simple vocabulary modification, one that erases all self-referential terms and thus re-programs speakers toward a specific, plot-driven end. China Miéville’s Embassytown, on the other hand, involves a language incapable of the semiotic process of signification, which likewise conceals the concepts of the Self and the Other. Each novel’s protagonist sets out on a traditional hero’s quest to “correct” the language by implementing its missing pieces, and in doing so, they reveal what truly lies at the heart of the dichotomy between the Self and the Other—the capacity for conscious and meaningful human connection. Both Delany and Miéville employ the concept of the novum, a typical identifier of the science fiction genre explored by literary theorist Darko Suvin. Approaching these works with a Suvinian lens opens the door through which we can view the protagonists’ language corrections not as mere plot events, but instead as the introduction of meta-nova in each fictional world. This lens thus allows us to observe what it would look like for a person or a species to gain access to the Self and the Other for the first time, and subsequently what it might mean for that person or species to make its first true connection with another being.