How Does Orwell Manipulate Language In 1984

In 1984, Orwell creates a dystopian world where everyone is constantly being monitored and watched. There are cameras in every room, and even their thoughts aren’t private. If a person so much as thinks about committing a crime, the thought police can catch them and bring them to Ministry of Love where they will be punished. The government, also known as Big Brother, is so corrupt in this society that they have full control over people, places, history, books, and everything else. Language plays a big part in this domination. Big Brother directs what words go in the dictionary, and therefore controls the words people can use. They are also replacing the language everyone knows, Oldspeak, with a new language that they can command better, Newspeak.

According to Lehman, “the control of language goes far beyond the simple manipulation of information”(1). Big Brother not only alters the information people are given, he takes away their freedom to speak. Having the freedom to speak gives people the power to run their lives. Language allows us to express who we are. In 1984, people cannot express themselves or speak freely because there are no words that exist that would allow them to do so. There are also no words to communicate thoughts of rebellion. As a result of this, no one has the ability to rebel. As Winston is walking he witnesses a group of women become loud and passionate about the selling of saucepans. He thinks that if they could act like this towards rebelling against Big Brother, they would have a chance to change everything. However, he doesn’t believe this will ever happen because he knows, “Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until they have rebelled they cannot become conscious”(Orwell 61). The citizens aren’t even aware of the fact that they can rebel. The only way they will learn they can rebel is if they rebel. According to Hannan, Orwell “discussed how an idea could be made literally unthinkable if there were no words to express it. The illustration he gave was the word ‘free.’ In Newspeak, ‘free’ could be used only in the sense of ‘this field is free from weeds’ or ‘this dog is free from lice.’ The concept of political or intellectual freedom had disappeared, because no one could put it into words”(1). This ultimate control of language is best demonstrated when Winston is having lunch with one of his co-workers, Syme. Syme’s job is to revise the dictionary and when Winston asks him how the dictionary is doing he responds, “We’re getting the language into its final shape--the shape it’s going to have when nobody speaks anything else. When we’ve finished with it, people like you will have to learn it