Language Variety in Terry Pratchett’s Fantasy Fiction

International audienceIn recent years, it has been claimed that science fiction and fantasy fiction seek to « challenge readers by interrogating what have become habitual and reflexive modes of thought » (Mandela 2011) and for Swinfen (1984) the role of fantasy is to make « the familiar strange » and « the strange familiar ». This chapter seeks to examine how far ithe style and language of such novels is really innovative . A fantasy text, just as any other text, is produced within a specific cultural and social context, and the fantasy worlds of novels by writers such as Terry Pratchett frequently cultivate references that are familiar to the reader. The question then arises as to whether the language of these novels represents « otherness » and how far it is linguistically deviant . Focussing on novels by Terry Pratchett, this chapter investigates the role played by language in creating the fantasy world paying special attention to the use of language varieties: diatopic, diastratic and diaphasic variations.. It examines to what extent the language in these novels is embedded in its culture of origin and simply playing on existing characteristics of English and their ressemblances to existing dialectal forms, and how far such varieties may be deemed innovative and capable of expressing a sense of « otherness »