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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 343

Part of Session 105: Language and Superdiversity (Other abstracts in this session)

Imagining Super-diversity: Science fiction film and the anxiety of diversification

Authors: Leppanen, Sirpa
Submitted by: Leppanen, Sirpa (University of Jyväskylä, Finland)

Science fiction is not only about what we imagine and fear about the future, but it also is an expression of the anxieties of the contemporary imagination.  As suggested  by Levine (2010), for example, social, political and ecological problems since the 1890s have given us a range of science fiction predictions of impending doom which are, in reality, deeply rooted in contemporary concerns.  In the 2000s, one recurrent concern of this kind has been the divisions , diversifications and fragmentations of human identity and society in the world characterized by mobility, migration and displacement. In such situations what unites and binds human beings together is no longer immediately apparent as humans are divided along  multiple lines of demarcation  -  origins, genes (natural or manipulated), species (human or alien), organic or synthetic substance, and the position of humans/aliens within or outside the privileged first world .

                      What is of particular interest to sociolinguists is that such demarcations as these are often expressed and investigated through language use and dialogue which are markedly mixed and polyvalent. These depictions of the linguistic present/future effectively foreground the question to what extent and in what ways understanding, communication,  intersubjectivity and co-habitation are possible at all. With no consensus about what the shared language could be, conflict, rather than conviviality, seems like the more likely scenario.  It could be argued that this type of science fiction investigates concerns of the late modernity facing super-diversity - a world in which categories of humans are no longer predictable and transparent  (cf Vertovec 2010; Blommaert and Rampton, 2011).

                      What I hope to do in this paper is to show how recent science fiction constitutes an influential discourse about super-diversity. While doing this, by specifically focusing on science fiction, I also aim at extending the scope of the emergent tradition of the study of polyglot/ multilingual film which has primarily looked at migrant and diasporic film (see e.g. Berger and Komori 2010) or Hollywood film (Bleichenbacher, 2008).  More specifically, I will investigate two recent films, the Blade Runner by Ridley Scott (1982) and Code 46 by Michal Winterbottom (2003) and offer an analysis of the mixed and  heterogeneous language practices characterizing their dialogue. I will show how their multilingualism offers uncanny - and primarily dys-utopian -  representations of current anxieties about how monolinguals and -monoculturals are struggling to come to terms with their languages, homesteads, and, eventually, their own identities, becoming diverse, shifting and unstable, as well as seeking ways to find a new basis for communality, interaction and solidarity.

References

Berger, V. & M. Komori (eds.). 2010. Polyglot cinema: Migration and transcultural narration in France, Italy, Portugal and Spain. Wien: LIT Verlag Dr. W. Hopf.

Bleichenbacher, L. 2008. Multilingualism in the movies: Hollywood characters and their language choices. Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto Verlag Gmbh. KG.

Blommaert, J. & B. Rampton. 2011.Language and superdiversity. Diversities.

Levine, David. 2010. How the Future Predicts Science Fiction. The Internet Review of Science Fiction,February 2010, VII: 2.

Vertovec, S. 2010. Towards post-multiculturalism? Changing communities, contexts and conditions of diversity. International Social Science Journal 199: 83-95.