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The Power of Language. 1984 and Today. Newspeak. What Newspeak words do we know so far? What is our opinion of those words? Is language used to express ideas or to control them? Look at the Principles of Newspeak (the Appendix to 1984) . Political Language.
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The Power of Language 1984 and Today
Newspeak • What Newspeak words do we know so far? • What is our opinion of those words? • Is language used to express ideas or to control them? • Look at the Principles of Newspeak (the Appendix to 1984).
Political Language • “Political language…is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” • from George Orwell’s essay “Politics and the English Language” (1946)
Political Language Today • “Critics on the left hear Orwellian resonances in phrases like ‘weapons of mass protection,’ for nonlethal arms, or in names like the Patriot Act or the Homeland Security Department’s Operation Liberty Shield, which authorizes indefinite detention of asylum-seekers from certain nations. Critics on the right hear them in phrases like ‘reproductive health services,’ ‘Office of Equality Assurance’ and ‘English Plus,’ for bilingual education.” • Geoffrey Nunberg, “In Simpler Terms; If It’s ‘Orwellian,’ It’s Probably Not” (The New York Times, 2003)
The Act of Writing • “To mark the paper was the decisive act.” (1984, pg. 7) • What makes writing an important act?
Is the English language in decline? • “Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent and our language -- so the argument runs -- must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. ” • from George Orwell’s essay “Politics and the English Language” (1946)
Newspeak Today • Do we use any terms or slang similar to Newspeak today? • What principles or practical reasons have led us to use such language?
Orwell’s Six Rules(from “Politics and the English Language”) • Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. • Never use a long word where a short one will do. • If it’s possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. • Never use the passive where you can use the active. • Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. • Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
