Posts tagged sff

In this new article I get to bring together three of my favourite things: gesture, science fiction and working with the best collaborators. I teamed up with genre author and creative writing expert Dr Peta Freestone and corpus whiz Jess Kruk to look at the different ways scifi gestures also have lives in the real world. 

We used emoji evidence to look at the ways use of the Vulcan Salute (🖖) on Twitter references Star Trek, as well as nerd culture in general. There’s no emoji for the Three Finger Salute from the Hunger Games (…yet?), so we used a newspaper corpus to see what we could learn about this gesture. It has become a gesture of protest by younger people against a variety of regimes across South and South East Asia, and is becoming untethered from its narrative origins. For this gesture, newspapers provided a good, nuanced understanding of the meaning and function of this gesture.

This article partially started out of a blog post where I was pondering fictional gestures in scifi and fantasy. The article is part of a special issue of Linguistic Vanguard on the linguistics of scifi, with a special focus on corpus methods, which was edited bySofia Rüdiger and Claudia Lange. It’s fun that this article stands alongside lots of great articles including work on the sociolinguistics of Firefly, the lexical influence of Star Wars and changing gender dynamics on Star Trek.

Abstract

Research on emblems to date has not drawn on corpus methods that use public data. In this paper, we use corpus methods to explore the use of original fictional gestures in the real world. We look at two examples from popular science fiction, the Vulcan salute from Star Trek and the three-finger salute from The Hunger Games. Firstly, a Twitter corpus of the Vulcan salute emoji shows that it is used to represent Star Trek fandom and wider nerd culture, alongside its use as a greeting. Secondly, a global news corpus shows the three-finger salute has come to be used as a pro-democracy protest gesture across political and cultural boundaries in South East Asia. These corpus studies show different trajectories for the two gestures, with the three-finger salute escaping the confines of its fictional world, while the Vulcan salute has come to stand in as a reference to the media it originated from. We conclude with a reflection on the opportunities, challenges and limitations of bringing corpus methods to gesture studies.

Reference

Freestone, P., J. Kruk & L. Gawne. 2023. From Star Trek to The Hunger Games: emblem gestures in science fiction and their uptake in popular culture. Linguistic Vanguard. doi: 10.1515/lingvan-2023-0006

See also

• Fictional gestures in scifi and fantasy
• How I made the Aramteskan language for P.M. Freestone’s Shadowscent
• Gesture emoji: contributing to the Unicode standard
  

Have you ever wanted your own constructed language for a sci-fi/fantasy novel, D&D quest, video game idea or bespoke lorem ipsum? I’m donating my starter conlang creation package to raise funds to support the fire fighting crews during this horrific bushfire season.

Authors For Fireys is an auction of signed books, illustrations, unique experiences, one-off opportunities and writers’ services. It is taking place on Twitter from 6th Jan 2020 under the hashtag #AuthorsForFireys. Winners donate to the CFA (Country Fire Authority) and show proof of donation.

As part of the auction I’ll make the winner a bespoke language word generator. See this tweet for the auction. This will include a 1-on-1 chat so I can interview you about what you’d like to do with the language, and some aesthetic preferences.

A few quick details that don’t fit into the tweet:

• We can meet 1-on-1 on Skype or in person if you live in Melbourne.
• The package will involve figuring out the shape of words in the language. From there you can name characters and places, or start your own dictionary. Grammar is a whole other level of detail, but you can start building that yourself with the word generator!
• The language will be yours to do with as you please.
• Bids in Australian Dollars (these go further than American dollars!).
• You do not have to be in Australia.
• You can donate to Wildlife Victoria instead if that’s your jam.
• Yes, extractive industries should pay tax.
  
• You can enter a bid without being on Twitter ,or a silent bid by getting in touch with me (superlinguo at gmail dot com)

From the Authors For Fireys website:

The auction ends at 11pm Sydney/Melbourne time on Saturday 11th Jan 2020.

Each author/illustrator involved (open invitation) creates a tweet announcing an item, unique opportunity or writing service they are offering to donate. The tweet will include a supporting image, plus the auction end time and hashtag #AuthorsForFireys.

Twitter users reply to that tweet with their bid in Australian dollars. Bidding continues on that thread (in increments of $1 Australian dollar or more) until the auction end time.

When the auction has ended, the item ‘owner’ messages the highest bidder on the thread.

The highest bidder is instructed to donate directly to the CFA. They must provide proof of donation to the item ‘owner’.

When proof of donation is received, the item or service is dispatched.

To sum up…

Creators run their own individual auction / tweet under the hashtag.

Twitter users scroll through the auction items under the hashtag and reply to the items to make their bids. Make your bids on the original item thread only. (ie. If you see an item quote-tweeted, do not bid there.)