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The Russian Language in Contemporary Conservative Dystopias
Author(s) -
BODIN PERARNE
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
the russian review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.136
H-Index - 24
eISSN - 1467-9434
pISSN - 0036-0341
DOI - 10.1111/russ.12103
Subject(s) - dystopia , mirroring , depiction , politics , utopia , power (physics) , aesthetics , focus (optics) , operationalization , sociology , literature , history , political science , epistemology , art , philosophy , art history , law , physics , communication , optics , quantum mechanics
The topic of this paper concerns a subgenre of modern prose, namely the linguistic dystopia, by which I mean a depiction of a future (“pessimistically extrapolating contemporary social trends into oppressive and terrifying societies”), in which the dysfunctionality or power potential of language is thematicized and operationalized by either the narrator, various characters in the novel, or the reader. The focus in the article will be on the mirroring of the development in Russian politics and society of today in the dystopias (or utopias) of Russian conservative authors through language.