TRANSMEDIAL WORLD-BUILDING AND ITS DISCURSIVE AUTHENTICATION IN THE STAR WARS UNIVERSE
Keywords:
transmedia world-building, text-world theory, Secondary Encyclopedia, discursive authentication, convergence culture.Abstract
The article examines the linguocognitive and sociocultural strategies involved in the formation and maintenance of a cohesive discursive space in the Star Wars media universe. It focuses on the phenomenon of transmedia world-building through M. Wolf's concept of the “Secondary Encyclopedia” and G. Jenkins’ theory of convergence culture, which together ensure the logical coherence and relative autonomy of the fictional galaxy. The novelty of the study lies in the synthesis of J. Gavins’ Text World Theory, N. Fairclough’s, and T. van Dijk’s approaches to Critical Discourse Analysis, and systemic-functional linguistics.
The work demonstrates that Master Yoda's unusual sentence structure is a marker of foreignness, while the use of technical jargon serves as a linguistic cue that creates an illusion of reality within the story and of scientific progress in the fictional world. The political rhetoric of Palpatine is analyzed, showing how the manipulation of the security theme encourages the perception of totalitarianism as a necessity. Particular attention is given to how fictional concepts are assimilated into language. They become markers of social identity for digital communities and gradually integrate into modern English.
