Politics And The English Language

Authors often use literary devices and writing techniques in their works. During the past block, we studied texts that exemplify the power of discourse. Each text used the literary devices and writing techniques of labels. They used these devices in order to influence their readers’ understanding and to construct reality. Specifically, the texts of “Writing like a White Guy,” by Jaswinder Bolina, and “Politics and the English Language,” by George Orwell, exemplify this. Both authors, in their respective texts, incorporate and discuss this device, as well as its roles in literature and understanding literature. Bolina discusses how the writing style of an author is wrongly thought to reflect the race of the author as people mislabel him based

“Politics and the English Language”, by George Orwell is about the influence of language on politics. Orwell describes language’s role in politics to be to bend the truth and persuade the people into aligning with certain politicians (Orwell 510). His main point is that politicians misuse language with wit and manipulation to deceive their audiences. Orwell expands on this, stating how the language of politicians is vague and meaningless. This causes deception and the truth to be hidden. Politicians use many different methods of deception. Politicians use dying metaphors to trick audiences. Dying metaphors are metaphorical phrases that seem meaningful and compelling; however, in reality, they do not make sense. Politicians also convolute their speeches to install confusion. They do this with the use of verbal phrases instead of single and simple verbs. These alongside pretentious words or phrases give a false sense of expertise. Orwell specifically mentions six guidelines for politicians to use language correctly and to stop deceiving audiences (Orwell 519). Orwell emphasizes that a politician should first break these rules

Bolina uses elegant and professional writing. However, not intentionally, this deceives his audiences into thinking that he is a white writer without realizing his name. In the text “Writing like a White Guy”, Jaswinder Bolina discusses how language, race, and poetry relate in regards to an author. Bolina is an English writer who moved to the United States in 2002. His father originally immigrated to the United Kingdom from India in 1965, more specifically Bolina Doaba, Punjab. Bolina’s dream was to become a writer and a poet; however, his father warned him that he would not be welcomed into the literary world with the name that he has. His father explained that, in order to be promoted and advance in that line of work, Bolina’s name must be a white name such as “Earl”, “Bill”, or “Frank” instead of an Indian name like Jaswinder (Bolina 497). Bolina even explains the relationship between language and race in the United States. Race and racism is a large part of American society and history to such an extent that it even is included in the literary world. While working for a magazine, Bolina’s boss compliments him for not writing about minority issues and/or immigration related topics. It takes Bolina a while to understand why race is so significant in the United States. It is only in America that Bolina can be called degrading terms such as “sand nigger” or “camel fucker”