Orwell on
Language &
Politics
Dr.Abdelrahim Hamid
Mugaddam
 Eric
Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January
1950),[1] better known by his pen name
George Orwell, was an English novelist
and journalist.
 His work is marked by clarity, intelligence
and wit, awareness of social injustice,
opposition to totalitarianism, and belief in
democratic socialism.[2][3]
Orwell Photo
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Considered perhaps the 20th century's best
chronicler of English culture, Orwell wrote literary
criticism, poetry, fiction and polemical journalism.
He is best known for the dystopian novel Nineteen
Eighty-Four (1949) and the allegorical novella Animal
Farm (1945), which together have sold more copies
than any two books by any other 20th-century
author.
His book Homage to Catalonia (1938), an account
of his experiences in the Spanish Civil War, is widely
acclaimed, as are his numerous essays on politics,
literature, language and culture. In 2008, The Times
ranked him second on a list of "The 50 greatest British
writers since 1945".
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"Orwellian" describes the situation, idea, or societal
condition that George Orwell identified as being
destructive to the welfare of a free society.
It connotes an attitude and a policy of control by
propaganda, surveillance, misinformation, denial
of truth, and manipulation of the past, including
the "unperson" — a person whose past existence is
expunged from the public record and memory,
practiced by modern repressive governments.
Often, this includes the circumstances depicted in
his novels, particularly Nineteen Eighty-Four.
 Orwell's
ideas about personal freedom
and state authority developed when he
was a British colonial administrator in
Burma.
 He was fascinated by the effect of
colonialism on the individual, requiring
acceptance of the idea that the
colonialist oppressor exists only for the
good of the oppressed person and
people.
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Orwell was a member of the Workers' Party of
Marxist Unification (POUM) militia and suffered
suppression and escaped arrest by the Comintern
faction
working
within
the
Republican
Government.
Following his escape he made a strong case for
defending the Spanish revolution from the
Communists there, and the misinformation in the
press at home.
During this period he formed strong ideas about
the reportage of events, and their context in his
own ideas of imperialism and democracy.
Meaning
The adjective Orwellian refers to these
behaviours of The Party, especially when the
Party is the State:
 Invasion of personal privacy, either directly
physically or indirectly by surveillance.
 State control of its citizens' daily life, as in a
"Big Brother" society.
 Official
encouragement
of
policies
contributing
to
the
socio-economic
disintegration of the family.
 The adoration of state leaders and their Party.
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The encouragement of "doublethink", whereby the
population must learn to embrace inconsistent
concepts without dissent, e.g. giving up liberty for
freedom. Similar terms used, are "doublespeak", and
"newspeak".
The revision of history in the favour of the State's
interpretation of it.
A (generally) dystopian future.
The use of euphemism to describe an agency,
program or other concept, especially when the
name denotes the opposite of what is actually
occurring. E.g. a department that wages war is
called the "Ministry of Peace" or "Ministry of Defence".
Big Brother
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The most common sense of Orwellian is that of the allcontrolling "Big Brother" state, used to negatively describe a
situation in which a Big Brother authority figure — in concert
with "thought police" — constantly monitors the population
to detect betrayal via "improper" thoughts.
Orwellian also describes oppressive political ideas and the
use of euphemistic political language in public discourse to
camouflage morally outrageous ideas and actions.
In this latter sense, the term is often used as a means of
attacking an opponent in political debate, by branding his
or her policies as Orwellian.
When used like this in political rhetoric if it is not sincere, it is
interesting to note as it can be a case of a hypocritical
Orwellian strategist denouncing Orwellian strategies.
Political Language
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Orwell tried to promote the use of more precise language in
political discourse, and he criticised political language popular at
the time, such as "running-dog lackey" and "Fascist octopus", which
he said prevented thought.
It seems unlikely that Orwell would have approved of many of the
uses to which his pseudonym is applied.
The loose definition of the term and the often poor correlation
between the real-life situations people describe as Orwellian and
his own dystopian fiction leave the use of the adjective at best
inexact and frequently politically inaccurate.
In his essay "Politics and the English Language", Orwell derided the
use of cliché and dying metaphors, which "even think your thoughts
for you, to a certain extent" and went on to say "But if thought
corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought."
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bad English of his day, citing dying
metaphors, pretentious diction or rhetoric,
and meaningless words, which he claimed to
encourage unclear thought and reasoning.
“Isaid earlier that the decadence of our
language is probably curable.
Those who deny this would argue, if they
produced an argument at all, that language
merely reflects existing social conditions, and
that we cannot influence its development by
any
direct
tinkering
with
words
or
constructions”.
Rules to Improve English!
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(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of
speech which you are used to seeing in print.
(ii) Never use a long word where a short one will do.
(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the
active.
(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a
jargon word if you can think of an everyday English
equivalent.
(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything
outright barbarous.
Language Manipulation.. The
Newspeak
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Newspeak is a fictional language in George Orwell's novel
Nineteen Eighty-Four.
In the novel, it refers to the deliberately impoverished language
promoted by the state.
Orwell explained the basic principles of the language in an essay
included as an appendix to the novel.
Newspeak is closely based on English but has a greatly reduced
and simplified vocabulary and grammar.
The totalitarian aim of the Party is to prevent any alternative
thinking — "thoughtcrime", or "crimethink" in the newest edition of
Newspeak — by destroying any vocabulary that expresses such
concepts as freedom, free enquiry, individualism, resistance to the
authority of the state and so on.
One character, Syme, says admiringly of the diminishing scope of
the new language: "It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words."
Features of the Newspeak
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The aim of Newspeak is to remove all shades of meaning
from language, leaving simple concepts (pleasure and
pain, happiness and sadness, goodthink and crimethink)
that reinforce the total dominance of the State.
Newspeak root words serve as both nouns and verbs,
further reducing the total number of words; for example,
"think" is both noun and verb, so the word thought is not
required and can be abolished.
The party also intends that Newspeak be spoken in
staccato rhythms with syllables that are easy to pronounce.
This will make speech more automatic and unconscious
and reduce the likelihood of thought. (See duckspeak.)
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words with negative meanings are removed as redundant, so "bad"
becomes "ungood".
Words with comparative and superlative meanings are also
simplified, so "better" becomes "gooder", and "best" becomes
"goodest".
Intensifiers can be added, so "great" became "plusgood", and
"excellent" and "splendid" become "doubleplusgood".
Adjectives are formed by adding the suffix "-ful" to a root word
(e.g., "goodthinkful", orthodox in thought), and adverbs by adding
"-wise" ("goodthinkwise", in an orthodox manner).
This would, of course, not prevent heretic statements such as "Big
Brother is ungood", but not only would this statement sound absurd
in the ears of the politically orthodox, it would also be impossible to
understand exactly what the statement means, since all concepts
and words that can be used to argue against Big Brother would be
eradicated from the language.
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By 2050—earlier, probably—all real knowledge of Oldspeak
will have disappeared.
The whole literature of the past will have been destroyed.
Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron—they'll exist only in
Newspeak versions, not merely changed into something
different, but actually contradictory of what they used to
be.
Even the literature of the Party will change. Even the
slogans will change.
How could you have a slogan like "freedom is slavery" when
the concept of freedom has been abolished? The whole
climate of thought will be different.
In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now.
Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think.
Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.
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Some examples of Newspeak from the novel include
crimethink, doublethink, and Ingsoc.
They mean, respectively, "thought-crime", "accepting
as correct two mutually contradictory beliefs", and
"English socialism" (the official political philosophy of
the Party).
The word Newspeak itself also comes from the
language. All of these words would be obsolete and
have been from the "final" version of Newspeak,
except for doubleplusungood in certain contexts.
Generically, Newspeak has come to mean any
attempt to restrict disapproved language by a
government or other powerful entity.
Vocabulary
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The "A" group of words deals with simple concepts needed in
everyday life (such as eating, drinking, working, cooking, and the
like).
It is almost entirely made up of words that already exist in the
English language.
The "B" group of words is deliberately constructed to convey more
complicated ideas.
The words in this group are compound words with political
implications, and aim to impose the mental attitude of the Party
upon the speaker. For example, the Newspeak word "goodthink"
roughly means "orthodoxy".
The "C" group of words deals with technical vocabulary and is
supplementary to the other two groups.
Since the Party does not want its people to have knowledge of
more than one restricted subject, there is no Newspeak word for
"science" as a whole. There are separate words for different fields.
 In
many of his essays and letters Orwell
criticised words with formally precise
definitions being used badly and the
vague slide in meaning for many of these
words. He was a fierce critic of Fascism
but
he
would
freely
mock
the
promiscuous use of the word:
It would seem that, as used, the word 'Fascism' is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is
used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal
punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang
Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley's broadcasts, youth hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I don't know
what else.[2]
Political propaganda!
A
1950s Chinese propaganda poster
showing a happy family of five enjoying
life under the image of Mao Zedong. The
caption above the picture reads "The
happy life Chairman Mao gives us".
A cult of personality
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A cult of personality arises when an individual
uses mass media, propaganda, or other
methods, to create an idealized and heroic
public image, often through unquestioning
flattery and praise. Sociologist Max Weber
developed a tripartite classification of
authority; the cult of personality holds parallels
with what Weber defined as "charismatic
authority". A cult of personality is similar to
hero worship, except that it is established by
mass media and propaganda.
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Throughout history, monarchs and heads of
state were almost always held in enormous
reverence.
Through the principle of the divine right of
kings, for example, rulers were said to hold
office by the will of God.
Imperial China (see Mandate of Heaven),
ancient Egypt, Japan, the Inca, the Aztecs,
Tibet, Thailand, and the Roman Empire (see
imperial cult) are especially noted for
redefining monarchs as god-kings.
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Personality cults were first described in relation to
totalitarian regimes that sought to radically alter or
transform society according to radical ideas.
Often, a single leader became associated with
this revolutionary transformation, and came to be
treated as a benevolent "guide" for the nation
without whom the transformation to a better future
couldn't occur.
This has been generally the justification for
personality cults that arose in totalitarian societies
of the 20th century, such as those of Adolf Hitler
and Ruhollah Khomeini.
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Not all dictatorships foster personality cults, not all
personality cults are dictatorships (some are
nominally democratic), and some leaders may
actively seek to minimize their own public adulation.
For example, during the Cambodian Khmer Rouge
regime, images of dictator Pol Pot (Saloth Sar) were
rarely seen in public, and his identity was under
dispute abroad until after his fall from power.
The same applied to numerous Eastern European
Communist regimes following World War II (although
not those of Enver Hoxha and Nicolae Ceaușescu,
mentioned below).