Meaning of cognitive estrangement | Babel Free

Definitions

A narrative logic, characteristic of science fiction, whereby devices used in the story are afforded plausibility by their being placed in the context of the fictional setting, which is envisioned to be scientifically consistent.

uncountable

Examples

“In his book Metamorphoses of Science Fiction (1979), Suvin introduced a number of ideas that remain central in sf criticism: cognitive estrangement, the novum and sf's genetic link with utopia. In the notion of cognitive estrangement, Suvin conflate two distinct, but related, ideas of estrangement from earlier literary theory: ostranenie (de-familiarization) from the Russian Formalists, and Berthold Brecht's Verfremdungseffekt (alienation effect).[…]Even more influential in sf theory than cognitive estrangement is Suvin's concept of the novum.”

“Cognitive estrangement can therefore be seen as defining the textual effects of such work: the text faces its audience with something that will not fit into the existing patterns of verisimilitude, yet is being asserted and explored as fact.”

“Darko Suvin, the eminent theorist of science fiction, defined science fiction as a literature of cognitive estrangement, a genre in which the reader enters an imaginative world different or estranged from his or her empirical world, but different in a way that obeys rational causation or scientific law: thus, it is estranged cognitively.”

CEFR level