As George Orwell also states “it’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.” In particular Orwell maintains that the destruction of language enables those in power to control the thought processes of the population. By eliminating unnecessary words such as adjectives, verbs and antonyms, there will be just six words to express notions such as “goodness” and “badness”. With the reduction in language, comes the reduction in the range of consciousness which becomes “always a little smaller”.
Oldspeak/Newspeak/1984.
Orwell includes in his Appendix, a discussion of “The principles of newspeak” to show how it will replace Oldspeak by the year 2050. He explain the concept of the reduction of language as a reflection of the reduction of thought processes, and a a means of control.
The party is able to control an individual’s mind and their intellectual reality through language. In so far as “thought is dependent on words”, then the complete replacement of Oldspeak will mean that the party member will have absolutely no concept of terms such as “politically free” or “intellectually free”. In other words, rebellion will be unthinkable.
In the Appendix, “Principles of Newspeak”, Orwell states that the “expression of unorthodox opinions” “was well-nigh impossible”. Even the statement, “Big Brother is ungood” could “not have been sustained by reasoned argument because the necessary words were not available”. Furthermore, the “concept of political equality no longer existed”.
- Newspeak is a linguistic tool to control people’s thought processes. Language is constantly reduced in an attempt to reduce thinking.
- Syme states that the purpose of Newspeak is to reduce “language down to the bone” eg. Syme p 54
- Syme makes a distinction between Oldspeak and Newspeak and praises Newspeak. He states, “it’s the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year.” (55)
- As Winston knows, with the reduction in language, comes the reduction in the range of consciousness which becomes “always a little smaller”. By 2050, the language will be reduced to such an extent that no one would be able to understand a typical 1984-conversation.
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