The work of George Orwell “Nineteen Eighty-Four” represents a totalitarian universe Oceania with its own world, rules, and even language. The author believed in close interconnection between the regime in the country and the official language used by ordinary people. Thus, the writer thought that with the corruption of thought, language suffers, too. To explain his ideas, the novelist created a special language “Newspeak” for his novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” a language designed by the totalitarian state Oceania used to deprive people of the freedom of thought and crush in the bud the concepts of freedom, individuality, self-expression, peace, etc. Newspeak and its vocabulary are presented in a detailed way in the appendix to the book, “The Principles of Newspeak”. Language is one of the main weapons of the government to control the population, and we can trace it throughout the book.
According to the novel, the language Newspeak was established in 2050. It has much in common with the English language (since it is based on the so-called “Oldspeak”, which is actually Standard English). Its main purpose is to provide a way of expression for the mental habits and principles which would conform to the IngSoc ideology. Moreover, it is designed in such a way as to exclude all other possible ways of thinking: “In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it” (Chapter 5). The vocabulary is formed in a special way to give a specific expression to each concept that the Party wanted to express, excluding all other possible interpretations. To attain this goal, some new words were created, many undesirable words were deleted, and many undesirable meanings were eliminated (Orwell). So, the government practically created its own new language and therefore the new world where they could establish not only the rules, but also the ideas and thoughts.
The Newspeak vocabulary is divided into several sections: A vocabulary, B vocabulary, and C vocabulary. The A vocabulary includes the words necessary for everyday life (for eating, drinking, working, etc. – “hit, run, dog, tree, house”). There are many words similar to the words in the English language, but there are much fewer of them, and their meanings are much more specific (there are no hints, no shades of meaning, only denotation). The control of thinking is also reflected in the grammar of the A vocabulary – parts of speech can be easily interchanged to eliminate some undesired words (like “thought” was substituted by “think”). Secondly, affixes are widely used to change or modify the meaning of any word (“ungood” instead of “bad”), so that any of the words in pair can be used according to the situational needs. Besides, practically all these inflections are subject to certain rules, i.e., there are no irregular forms (past participle is always formed by adding “-ed” – sealed, drawed, degrees of comparison are made by adding “-er” or “-est” only - beautifuler, the interestingest) (Orwell). So, there was created a special vocabulary for the ordinary stratum of the society, for ordinary people.
The B vocabulary consists of words from political sphere, which included a wide range of ideas into a few syllables and were more accurate than words of the ordinary language. These were compound words (consisting of 2 words, like “goodthink”). Some words included so many meanings, so that the meaning as it is was practically destroyed. This total generalization was made for the sake of safety, since precise words (like “equality” or “liberty”) were classified as potentially dangerous and were to be excluded from the vocabulary and mind. Just like the outlook of the ancient Hebrew, it was believed that people must know only what they must believe to be true; all other things were considered to be superfluous. For example, sexual intercourse could be called in two possible ways – “sexcrime” (included all sexual misdeed without specification) and “goodsex” (ordinary sexual intercourse, but again without details). An ordinary citizen was supposed not to be interested in all other things, he was to know what is good and what is bad, and that’s all. Lots of the words in the B vocabulary are euphemisms, with some colouring. For example, the names of Ministries mean exactly the opposite things (e.g., Ministry of Peace actually led wars and must have been called Ministry of War, actually). There are ambiguous words, which have positive connotation when applied to the Party and bad connotation – when applied to the enemies. The euphony of words is also not arbitrary – the words were designed in such a way so to make the speech “independent of consciousness” (Orwell). Not only the word meanings and the sounding, but also the volume of the vocabulary limited the thinking of a person. Newspeak vocabulary was quite scarce and constantly reducing, since the fewer words there are to use, the fewer ways there are to think (Orwell). So, the government changed its own language a bit in order to influence the population and not to fuel any suspicions.
The C vocabulary consists only of scientific and technical terms, which are, as usually, cleared from undesirable meanings. However, these words are closely connected to this or that sphere, and there are very few words which could be found in both lists. Moreover, science as it is was considered in a different way, there was no concept of science as the way of thinking; therefore there was no concept of critical, scientific thought. The meaning of the words has only the shades which are approved by the Party, and their usage in the unusual and different context will create only an absurd sentence. Although at first “Oldspeak” was still used, it disappeared soon, as well as the possibility to create such sentences like “Big Brother is ungood”. Generations were changing and younger people got to know only one meaning of a word, with the “necessary” meaning. For example, in some generations there would be no person who would know that “free” can mean “intellectually and mentally free” (Orwell). So, critical thinking, with analysis, synthesis, evaluation, and doubt was absolutely destroyed by the government. People were to accept everything they heard or read in all good faith.
Thus, the old language Oldspeak eventually disappeared in minds of the citizens, along with the concepts and ideas which could be expressed by this language. The history was rewritten and created anew. The last connections to the past were destroyed and with the passage of time there would be nobody who could translate texts from Oldspeak into Newspeak. The memories of the main hero can exemplify this fact: “For how could you establish even the most obvious fact when there existed no record outside your own memory?” (Orwell, Chapter 3).
Another way to control and limit people’s minds invented by the government in Nineteen Eighty-Four was a mental technique “doublethink”: “To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out” (Orwell, Chapter 1). Thus, people’s minds were designed in such a way that they could accept extremely different and contradictive viewpoints without even doubting this contradiction. This principle is clear-cut in the main plotline of the main character, O’Brien, who finally believes the Party. But they need you not only to say that but to mean that, even if it means betraying your previous beliefs. Besides, as it is said in the novel, “even to understand the word ‘doublethink’ involved the use of doublethink” (Orwell, Chapter 1). So, everything in the world of “1984” is penetrated by constant lie to oneself and to everyone around, but none of these aspects of life is ever impugned due to elaborate and thorough work of the government.
Thus we can see how George Orwell in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four managed to show the tight interlace of thought and language, of mind and speech, of ideology and words. The totalitarian government changed the language by all possible means – in its form and meaning, in the signifier and the signified, accompanied by the limitation of the broadness of thinking, by regular reduction of the vocabulary available to ordinary people. It helped the Party not only to control the minds of people today, but also to anticipate and preclude all possible deviations from the norm in future. Along with the language, people were constantly controlled from their birth by the Thought Police through telescreens in each house, which broadcast every movement and every word pronounced.
Of course, reading such a piece of literature, we subconsciously start extending the ideas of the book to our modern world and musing on the influence of language on our way of thinking today.
As far as I am concerned, our world can in no way be compared to that in the novel by Orwell. Our languages and vocabularies have not reduced, but have been developing since their formation long time ago. The world striving to globalization, more and more languages find general lines, and more and more words penetrate into other languages, together with new concepts and ideas. People’s thinking is not limited to one meaning only. Moreover, words are not eliminated from the vocabulary by force; they tend to disappear together with the development of the language and due to certain circumstances. Thus, we can say that our language world is much broader and freer than that described in the novel.
However, on the other hand, we should bear in mind that Orwell’s world resembles rather a hyperbole and farce. Looking into the gist of the book, we have to admit that some aspects of our life and speech are still controlled and regulated by others. First and foremost, it happens in the Internet. Today a person can be tried and sentenced because of some insulting or dangerous words written in Facebook or Twitter. There occured several cases when people got into the jail for bad words addressed to the government. Moreover, most mass media have always been controlled by the government – TV and radio broadcast only the news approved to deliver. Thus, many ordinary and not very inquisitive people may never learn about some tragedies or wars happening not far from them if mass media are prohibited to share this information. No wonder, it influences our minds, too. So, many people believe that their government is the best and does only the good.
Thus, we can see certain similarities between the novel and life, which makes us ponder whether our life is very much different from Oceania and how can we know, which aspects of our life have been already eliminated so imperceptibly that only future generations will know about it.
Works Cited
"George Orwell: ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’." George Orwell: Nineteen Eighty-Four. Web. 21 Apr. 2016.
"Nineteen Eighty-four, by George Orwell." Chapter1.3. Web. 21 Apr. 2016.
"Nineteen Eighty-four, by George Orwell." Chapter3. Web. 21 Apr. 2016.
Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty Four. St Ives: Penguin, 2003. Print.
