2019, Vol. 10, No. 4. - go to content...

Permanent address of this page - https://sfk-mn.ru/en/37flsk419.html

Метаданные этой статьи так же доступны на русском языке

Full article in PDF format (file size: 315.4 KB)

For citation:

Inyashkin S.G. [American science-fiction thesaurus of the XX century] World of Science. Series: Sociology, Philology, Cultural Studies, 2019, Vol. 10, No. 4. Available at: https://sfk-mn.ru/PDF/37FLSK419.pdf (in Russian).

American science-fiction thesaurus of the XX century

Inyashkin Stanislav Gennadʹevich
Pushkin state Russian language institute, Moscow, Russia
E-mail: Stanislav.g.inyashkin@mail.ru

Abstract. The article is devoted to the thesaurus analyses of the novels by Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein in order to form the science fiction thesaurus. First, the author gives definitions of the key terms. Science fiction thesaurus means a set of the most important personal science fiction thesauruses. Personal science fiction thesaurus is described as a set of the most frequent science fiction collocations, set phrases that mean or contain science fiction inventions, dispositions, natural and social peculiarities. Giving a number of historical data connected with the novels, the author points out the most frequent science fiction collocations. Firstly, their analyses showed that Asimov’s works are mostly connected with robotics throughout all his life. Indeed, the most frequent science fiction collocations are formed with the help of such words as «robot», «positronic», «roboticist» and «Laws of Robotics». Secondly, the analyses showed that Heinlein’s focus switched from science fiction inventions, connected with space, to social peculiarities such as religion, gender, militarism etc. The most frequent science fiction collocations with such words as «rocket», «space» и «acceleration» changed for «the Church of the New Revelation» and «the Church of All Worlds». In conclusion the author says that such a scientific approach will help to form the science fiction thesaurus that will contain the most important science fiction phenomena not only for the XX century, but for the whole genre.

Keywords: science-fiction thesaurus; personal thesaurus; collocation; science-fiction; Robert Heinlein; Isaac Asimov; robot; Three Laws of Robotics; the Church of All Worlds

Download article in PDF format