“Story of Your Life” is a famous Sci-fi novella written by Ted Chiang (a Chinese American writer), combing linguistic elements with oriental philosophy. Since its first publication, many readers and critics have been impressed by its attractive narrative technique and thought-provoking theme. This essay mainly analyzes the narrative strategy of this novella from the perspective of Linguistics and narratology. With several conclusions of main traits in composing the story, it intends to uncover the roles that non-linear narrative plays in forming the story and revealing the main idea, to further discover the attractiveness of novel narrative approaches in science fiction and hopefully provide some inspirations for future post-modern literature creation in Sci-Fi genre.

Xianfeng Zhang. The Magic of Time Puzzle in Non-Linear Narrative—A Analysis of the Narrative Technique in “Story of Your Life”. Academic Journal of Humanities & Social Sciences (2022) Vol. 5, Issue 14: 45-49. https://doi.org/10.25236/AJHSS.2022.051409.

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