Lexical Semantics: Mapping Gender and Cultural Geography in Ursula K. Le Guin’s Speculative Fiction

Abstract

This article attempts to contextualize how the idea of geography plays a significant role in speculative fiction. The resultant contention is that the gender dynamics of space and place, regarded in the setting of literary anthropology, can be studied through a close examination of lexical and semantic patterns. Stemming from this line of enquiry, the article revisits Ursula K. Le Guin’s novelette “Buffalo Gals, Won’t You Come Out Tonight” and discusses the striking co-relations that emerge when reading into the underlying intersections of gender geography and cultural geography.