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How Does Orwell Use Language In 1984

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In 1984, Orwell paints a nightmarish picture of a totalitarian system gone to the absolute extreme. He believed that totalitarianism and the corruption of language were connected and he integrated it into the novel by using language as the ultimate weapon of destruction. Big Brother uses the power of language to oppress, persuade and control the people of Oceania.
The official language of Oceania is Newspeak, which the party use to control its subjects and outlaw subversive thoughts. The party believe that destroying words will inevitably prevent power from slipping through their fingers. Values such as ‘honour, integrity, morality, etc’ cease to exist. In chapter five, Syme explains to Winston, “We’re cutting the language down to the bone. Newspeak is the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year”. Through this quote, it is easy to interpret that ‘Newspeak’ is merely used to restrict the freedom of expression. By limiting the vocabulary, Newspeak is essentially “unintelligible” and hence controls the people’s understanding of the real world.
Orwell emphasises that language is of utmost importance as it structures and limits the ideas individuals are capable of formulating and expressing. In 1984, language is used as a ‘mind control tool’. The party slogan, “war is peace, freedom is …show more content…

Thinking outside Party Ideology and beliefs is labelled as ‘thought –crime’ because the act of free –independent thinking is unorthodox. When Winston began writing in his diary, he expected to be ‘vaporised’ as he had denounced Big Brother. He states, “thought crime does not entail death; thought crime IS death’. Syme describes destroying words to Winston, “In the end, we shall make thought crime literally impossible because there will be now words in which to express it” In other words, eliminating specific words and concepts strip them of their ability to

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Syme craves the movement for the destruction of words. While Syme converses with Winston, he reasons “If you have a word like ‘good’, what need is there for a word like ‘bad’? ‘Ungood’ will do just as well -- better…” (Orwell 1).

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It is obvious that the government is the biggest thing in the book “1984” and how much the government controls the population is astounding. Although there are many obvious ways that Big Brother controls the population, “Newspeak” is probably one of the worst, if not the worst and most intense control mechanism. With “Newspeak” not only is what people say controlled, but it is also restricted, it is made so that the language used is modified and people cannot say certain things even if they wanted to. “Newspeak” is a way in which the government in Oceania controls what the people say and believe. Big brother is the ruler of Oceania, and while it might not directly be said that he is a dictator, it is very much obvious that everything that

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Winston, like the majority of the public, suffers when he is robbed of his words and thoughts. Consequently, “memory, with its attendant richness and variety, atrophies” since “memories die when they go unrehearsed in words” (Lewis and Moss 51). (Berkes

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In George Orwell’s book, 1984, he places a great emphasis on the concept of Newspeak, which is, an altered form of the English language designed and controlled by the Party in order to suppress individualism. Newspeak diminishes the span of thoughts which leads to their memory being shortened. Orwell believed that a totalitarian regime and the corruption of language were connected. He focused especially on political language where you distorted events and concepts by calling them something else. You said things in such a way that you avoided producing an inner picture of them.

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Language: “The voice came from an oblong metal plaque like a dulled mirror which formed part of the surface of the right-hand wall.” (2) “Day and night the telescreens bruised your ears with statistics proving that people today had more food, more clothes, better houses, better recreations... Not a word of it could be proved or disproved... It was like a single equation with two unknowns” (74) L(1) George Orwell, the author of 1984, uses figurative language within this quote with a perfectly crafted simile.

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In this alternate 1984, the governments of three fictional nations – Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia – take control of mankind’s free thought by taking control of its media institutions, both written and spoken (Bossche). His points are relevant in the real world, because governments are developing institutions of surveillance and propaganda, just as they did in the novel. In the novel 1984, George Orwell employs the rhetorical techniques of symbolism, allegory, and

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The Party is working on their Newspeak dictionaries. Newspeak is a limited language, intending to include only words that the Party deems acceptable and which works for their prerogative. When speaking about the Newspeak dictionary to Winston,

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This is the Ministry that Winston works at, and his job is to correct and edit documents. "This process of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, soundtracks, cartoons, photographs to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or ideological significance" (Orwell 40). This passage refers to the process of changing the past, which is Winston's job. By controlling the past, the Party is able to manipulate the minds of the citizens. This is an example of how the party lies to the people.

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The Destruction of Language Language plays a vital role in society. It is the outline of culture, behavior, and communication. Although it is so important, just shortening the vocabulary of the people will not narrow the range of thought enough to eliminate the possibility of rebellion and disobedience. In the book, 1984, this idea is experimented with to help the reader better comprehend how powerful words can be, and that people with smaller vocabularies would not necessarily think less, but have to try harder to express their feelings. It is in human nature to freely express who you are and do what you want, but there are ways to do this other than just speaking and using language.

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As a result, the people have very little capacity to rebel against the Party with regards to other concepts and subject areas, as they do not have the relevant words which allow them to think rationally and to articulate themselves clearly to others. Additionally, the Party is able to manipulate the way in which the people conceive reality, by making use of principles such as “doublethink” and “duckspeak”. With all these methods, the Party is able to control and make the people submissive to itself, thus allowing it to maintain its rule and authority. Essay In George Orwell’s novel, “Nineteen Eighty-Four”, the Party implements a restrictive language known as “Newspeak”, in order to manipulate and diminish the personal thoughts of the people.

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Living through the first half of the twentieth century, George Orwell watched the rise of totalitarian regimes in Germany, Italy, Spain, and the Soviet Union. Fighting in Spain, he witnessed the brutalities of the fascists and Stalinists first hand. His experiences awakened him to the evils of a totalitarian government. In his novel 1984, Orwell paints a dark and pessimistic vision of the future where society is completely controlled by a totalitarian government. He uses symbolism and the character’s developments to show the nature of total power in a government and the extremes it will go through to retain that power by repressing individual freedom and the truth.

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Nineteen eighty-four is a highly constructed dramatic experience which effectively delineates totalitarianism and controlling governments within Oceania, revealed through its respectable language. The language used by Orwell critics how the dystopian land of Oceania was during the time of the cold war. Within the last paragraph of 1984, Orwell effectively depicts the dystopian world of Oceania and shows that through the extreme control of human nature by using INGSOC’s, the representation of big brother and the act of dehumanisation, portraying that the government is purely a one sided and controlling government. Through Orwell 's use of techniques, he prompts the reader to question the ideals totalitarianism and government control. Thus, the audience is informed that the totalitarian government has a vast amount of capabilities, that can be used ultimately to control the minds of individuals in 1984.

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Language as a form of mind control in 1984 and Brave New World Although one 's idea of Utopianism is unique to one’s beliefs, the genre of Utopian and Dystopian fiction is commonly tackled in novels, from which the authors convey the idea of a depraved society through detailing inhumane characteristics which would be seen unacceptable to any world citizen. In Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, and 1984 by George Orwell authors create tyrannical governments responsible for a set of callous actions such as the eradication of freedom of speech and ideological control over their population’s mentality. These wrongdoings are achieved through the application of methods that obligate people to act as machines, such as the ad campaigns in Brave New World and the implementation of the Newspeak dictionary in 1984. As Orwell creates the ministry of truth as a means to demonstrate the lack of ideological freedom in oceania, Huxley discusses the concept of World Controllers and the use of SOMA as examples of the alienated society of Brave New World.

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In Orwell's opinion, the destruction of Language is used to dumb down the people and control the minds of the masses. This ideology is exhibited in the fictional language of Newspeak, the language created by Orwell in the book 1984. The purpose of Newspeak is to lessen the knowledge of the people under the Party and eventually make thought crime impossible. An example of this is in the

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Each part of everyone’s day is planned out and strictly enforced, from the morning exercises, to meals, to work, to sleep. Any form of expression is forbidden, and Winston’s decisions to both write his thoughts down in a diary and to have a relationship with Julia is both punishable by death. The government is attempting to control people through words. They edit out words in the dictionary, leaving people no ways of even expressing or describing certain things because those words no longer exist. The newly implemented language, Newspeak, is a form of English that the book’s totalitarian government utilizes to discourage freethinking.

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