Abstract
In this chapter, Calvin develops the fourth of four modes of FESF, in which questions of language, language use, and linguistic biases raise epistemological concerns. Beginning in the 1970s, feminist linguists have pointed to the ways in which language and linguistic practice have been biased. Early feminist linguists drew on a deterministic theory of language, while later linguists turned to discourse analysis (DA) models. However, they all examine some of the ways in which the language we speak shapes the questions we can ask about knowledge, and how we talk about it. Calvin offers examples from Ursula K. Le Guin, Suzette Haden Elgin, Sheila Finch, Ruth Nestvold, and Monique Wittig.
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Notes
- 1.
Consider, for example, the debates around terminology for the global climate crisis. The usage has shifted from “global warming” to “global weirding” to “climate change” to “climate crisis.” Each term was intended (a) to better describe the situation, and (b) to have a stronger sense of urgency and impact upon the average citizen.
- 2.
Meyers’s monograph on linguistics in science fiction was preceded by five years by Myra Edwards Barnes’s Linguistics and Language in Science-Fantasy (1975).
- 3.
For more on Vance’s novel and its relationship to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, see Walter Meyers’s Aliens and Linguistics.
- 4.
In Speaking Freely (1990), Julia Penelope goes even further than Lakoff. Zhe identifies the phonological, morphological, syntactical, and semantic ways in which women’s speech patterns differ from the masculine norm. While Lakoff cautions against changes in language that would make speakers self-conscious, Penelope argues that, as language users, we need to be more self-conscious and self-aware all the time.
- 5.
Hekman cites a 2004 essay by Bruno Latour—long a proponent of constructionism and a leading figure in the social study of the sciences—in which zhe argues that “The question was never to get away from facts but closer to them, not fighting empiricism but, on the contrary, renewing empiricism” (3). Latour’s argument sounds remarkably like Harding’s articulation of feminist standpoint epistemology. Hekman also notes that Haraway’s incursions into primatology and zher “Manifest for Cyborgs” both demonstrate, not the desire to ignore or “obliterate” (5) reality, but rather to understand it better—a goal zhe shares with Harding and other feminist epistemologists.
- 6.
Nevertheless, zhe simultaneously contends that The Left Hand of Darkness is not about “feminism or sex or gender or anything of the sort,” but rather, about “betrayal and fidelity” (“Is Gender Necessary? Redux” 8).
- 7.
In zher “field notes,” Ong Tot Oppong suggests that the Gethenian biology could only be the result of an experiment because the changes suggest no evolutionary advantage, though zhe later contradicts herself and suggests that the biological change may well provide an advantage.
- 8.
The notion that all sexuality is heterosexual is a troublesome aspect of the novel. The narrative does mention “perverts” (someone who is permanently female or male) who participate in the Foretelling ceremonies. The narrative also suggests that same-sex sex is possible, but the biological drive of kemmer seems to largely eliminate homosexuality. Hormonal or biological, or not, human sexuality is widely diverse.
- 9.
Lakoff and Penelope also suggest that the universal masculine was the work of male grammarians. However, Patricia T. O’Conner and Stewart Kellerman (2009) argue that the institutionalization of the universal masculine pronoun was actually the work of a female grammarian, Anne Fisher (1719–78). However, in a systemic patriarchy, the sex of the grammarian is not really the key factor; each and every person within the society has already been shaped by the values of patriarchy.
- 10.
The argument that gender-neutral pronouns, or that amalgamation of feminine and masculine pronouns, would be cumbersome and unaesthetic is not a new argument. Indeed, in the USA in the 1880s, a spirited debate on gender-neutral pronouns took place in a number of prominent newspapers. See Dennis Baron, “The Gender-Neutral Pronoun: 150 Years Later, Still an Epic Fail.” In “Future Tense,” Sheila Finch argues that “Numbers and pronouns are more resistant to change, which is why the feminist attempt to invent a neutral third-person pronoun (‘s/he’) hasn’t succeeded” (6).
- 11.
One of the recent trends in feminist epistemology is the turn toward “the epistemology of ignorance.” See, for example, Lorraine Code, “The Power of Ignorance” (2004); Nancy Tuana, “The Speculum of Ignorance: The Women’s Health Movement and Epistemologies of Ignorance” (2006); Shannon Sullivan and Nancy Tuana (eds.), Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance (2007).
- 12.
Example titles include, How to Disagree without Being Disagreeable: Getting Your Point Across with the Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense (1997); You Can’t Say That to Me: Stopping the Pain of Verbal Abuse—An 8-Step Program (1995); Genderspeak: Men, Women, and the Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense (1993); and The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense (1985).
- 13.
Telepathy as a means of direct communication also has some limitations. It leaves open the question of how deeply the encoding takes place. The question of whether thought takes place prior to language will remain unexamined here.
- 14.
In “Naming of Things” (1986), Mary Kay Bray notes that Native Tongue and The Female Man (to which I would add The Handmaid’s Tale) act as “direct satire of present cultural behavior” (52).
- 15.
See, for example, Adrienne Rich’s essay, “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.”
- 16.
Arguably, the rhetoric of the 2012 and 2016 election cycles in the USA further confirms Elgin’s contention.
- 17.
In Chapter Nine, Thomas explains to a government official that no human language is any more difficult than any other human language; non-human languages, zhe argues, are all difficult, and some more so than others.
- 18.
Ria Cheyne notes some 1800 constructed languages and 700 “fictional languages,” that is, languages that are mentioned and/or constructed in fictional settings (388).
- 19.
A Web site dedicated to chronicling and teaching Láadan can be found here: “Láadan Language,” http://www.laadanlanguage.org/.
- 20.
Elgin also writes about the process of creating Láadan in zher essay, “Women’s Language” (1987).
- 21.
In the first DAW edition of the novel.
- 22.
Elgin provides zher summaries of Gödel in an epigram to Chapter Thirteen. However, zhe attributes it to “an obscure pamphlet entitled ‘Primer in Metalinguistics,’ by an even more obscure group known as the Planet Ozark Offworld Auxiliary; they credit these statements to an inspiration from the great Doublas Hofstader [sic] …” (145). So, zhe credits both Gödel and Hofstadter and ties the booklet to another of zher series.
- 23.
On the contrary, Elisabeth Mahoney (1995) argues that many of the criticisms of the novel miss the point—that Elgin herself and the narrative of the novel point to the impossibility of a “woman-centered language.” Instead, Mahoney argues that Native Tongue should be read as a text that “problematizes the possibility of a women’s language, rather than as a text which provides some (all too easy) answers to questions concerning the cultural ‘silencing’ of women” (123).
- 24.
See also, for example, Carol Gilligan’s In a Different Voice (1982), which also argues for a separate-but-equal developmental model.
- 25.
For example, Whorf writes: “From this point on it would be a task to mention individual contributors is this dawning realization and growing idea that linguistics is fundamental to the theory of thinking and in the last analysis to ALL HUMAN SCIENCES” (78).
- 26.
Although not developed in great detail, Finch also provides a number of variations and subversions, including an underground organization that espouses an ending to the cloning program, and the Dowists, who espouse the superiority of humans over machines.
- 27.
Although it is unclear whether the demographic of the ship reflects the current demographics on Earth, it seems that all the crew members, with the exception of Zion Marit, are women of color. Although the novel provides only a few physical descriptions, the surnames suggest as much (Cheng, Selele, Alvez, Karek, Matiz, and Tsing). Gia Kennedy’s father was Hawk, a tribal leader of an indigenous group in the Taos, New Mexico.
- 28.
Some current research on Artificial intelligences (AIs) suggests that they operate better if they are not coded to respond to fixed situations but, rather, to code them to be inquisitive and to learn from a situation. See, for example, Zoldi (2015).
- 29.
See “Author’s Note,” http://www.lit-arts.net/Cutting_Edges/1stpage.htm.
- 30.
Indeed, in Feminist Utopias (1989), Frances Bartkowksi states that Wittig left France and came to the USA precisely because of a rift with Irigaray and Cixous (35).
- 31.
In their essay, Epps and Katz quote from the original French publication, and the translations are their own, not from the English version of the text. For this reason, I have quoted from Epps and Katz.
- 32.
Les Guérillères is the only text examined in this volume that was not originally written in English. I include it here, in part, because Wittig directly confronts the relationship of language and knowledge and, in part, because Wittig left France and lived and wrote in the USA.
- 33.
Both of these strategies will be central to Russ’s The Female Man, which was published six years after Les Guérillères.
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Calvin, R. (2016). Chapter Five The Fourth Mode of FESF: Epistemology and Language. In: Feminist Science Fiction and Feminist Epistemology. Studies in Global Science Fiction. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32470-8_6
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