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Diego Cruz
Catherin Koehler
Writing 1
25 November 2013
Manipulative Language
Language is a very powerful trait a person can have, “But if thought can corrupt
language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and
imitation, even among people who should and do know better.” (Orwell 242) Language is
used everywhere: talking with friends, simple communications with others, or getting a
message across. Cross, Lutz, and Orwell talk about distinct types of language used to
communicate with someone, but it is actually used to deceive the target that the
statements are directed too.
Each of these authors’ talks about different techniques of deceptive language is
beginning to spread as the official language of public discourse. Their central focus is
language that manipulates politics, propaganda, and doublespeak. They each give a brief
explanation of what each type of language is and have different forms that each
manipulative technique can be used using other types of smaller and similar techniques..
Cross focuses on propaganda because he believes it “is simply a means of persuasion and
so it can be put to work for good causes as well as bad” (Cross 209) with techniques used
to manipulate his audience with propaganda. Lutz focuses on doublespeak giving four
ways to make doublespeak deceptive without people realizing it is doublespeak. Orwell’s
other techniques for “political language has to consist largely of euphemism, questionbegging, and sheer cloudy vagueness” (Orwell 241). Although each of them has different
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techniques to manipulate language, they all have similar purpose: to express their
manipulative language. Although each of their techniques is different, they all have some
sort of relationship that brings them together with each different technique. Techniques
such as euphemism, glittering language, and dying metaphors all relate to the theme of
making bad or negative sound good or positive. “These examples should make it clear
that doublespeak is not the product of careless language or sloppy thinking. Indeed,
serious doublespeak is the product of clear thinking and is carefully designed and
constructed to appear to communicate but in fact to mislead.” (Lutz 252)
“Euphemism is used to mislead or deceive, however, it becomes doublespeak”
(Lutz 249) by using glittering language or dying metaphors to give good connotations to
the language being used. If someone hears something that is bad but with good
connotation, people will think that it is actually good. Another example in which each of
the authors’ techniques interacts similarly is with gobbledygook, bandwagon and
pretentious diction. Bandwagon is used to support an action or an opinion because it is
very popular and can be made stronger and deceptive using gobbledygook and
pretentions diction. Because gobbledygook and pretentions diction requires very “big”
words used to dress up simple statements to make things look more complex and
confused the audience into thinking that those “big” words that they never heard of have
good connotation will fall for the manipulation of bandwagon.
Jargon and plain folks have a relationship in which both are used to impress the
audience and confuse them to win their support. Jargon is language used to impress that
can be used in plain folks to make the person seem very important and impressive to gain
support from the audience. The last relationship that can be made is between inflated
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language meaningless words and false analogy. Because false analogy makes an analogy
between two completely different subjects, inflated language and meaningless words can
be used to manipulate the author into thinking that the two complete different subjects are
actually very closely related. Meaningless words just take up space to make things look
more complex, while inflated language rephrases bad statements into statements that are
cleaner and nicer. Their techniques are not identically the same but each technique has its
own category because they believe “language as an instrument for expressing and not for
concealing or preventing thought” (Orwell 244). Themes such as bad sounding good
language used to impress others to change their opinion, language used to confuse the
audience into thinking they understand everything that is being said, and language that
makes the bad not seem too bad.
Although Cross, Lutz, and Orwell each focus in different themes, propaganda,
politics, and doublespeak, they can each integrate their own ideas within each other’s
techniques to get their point across because “People are bamboozled mainly because they
don’t recognize propaganda when they see it. They need to be informed about the various
devices that can be used to mislead and deceive—about the propagandists overflowing
bag of tricks” (Cross 210). By integrating and combining each other’s techniques their
goal, deceiving their audience and changing their opinion, is easier to achieve.