'Language as a Powerful Mind Control Weapon Essay\r'

' cardinal Eighty-Four (1949) is a classic dystopian novel by slope author George Orwell. uni var. to the latter’s earlier work, Animal resurrect (1945), Nineteen Eighty-Four is a cautionary taradiddle about the dangers of totalitarianism. The novel’s main character, Winston smith, is a civil servant tasked with disseminating authorities propaganda through the forge of records and political literature. Disillusioned with such a mechanical existence, Smith begins an uprising against the regime †a inspire which ulterior resulted in his incarceration and torture.\r\nThe esteem of Nineteen Eighty-Four can be attributed mainly to its outspoken and vivid portrayal of the perpetuation of the status quo at the expense of individual rights (Gearon 65). Many of the novel’s terminologies and ideas, such as â€Å"doublethink,” â€Å"Orwellian,” â€Å"Newspeak” and â€Å"Big Br otherwise,” eventu on the whole(prenominal) toldy acq uired procure places in the English vocabulary (Trahair 289). At present, nigh thinkers even theatrical role these sorts and c at one timepts to criticize repressive government policies.\r\nThe term â€Å"Orwellian,” for instance, is currently an idiom that refers to any mannikin of normalcy that closely resembles the companionship (Cameron 151). One of Orwell’s major arguments in the novel is that language is the totalitarian government’s most powerful machine of mind control. Through the usage of deceptive language and propaganda, as well as the modification of language, the treater was able to manipulate the thought processs and beliefs of the citizens of Oceania. Newspeak was the ships company’s elemental means of misleading the citizens of Oceania (Thomas, Singh, Peccei, Jones and W atomic number 18ing 39).\r\nIt was a corrupted form of type English (known in the novel as Oldspeak) that reflected the principles of Ingsoc. â€Å"Undesir able” delivery were eliminated from the lingua franca, while those that were carry were stripped of â€Å"unorthodox” de nonations (Ji 1). Consequently, it became impossible to develop other modes of thought in Newspeak (Orwell 144). Newspeak was more than than just a language †it was the â€Å"(embodiment) of the totalitarian (mindset) of the party members” (Gerovitch 12).\r\nTo accommodate climb up views would increase the possibility of encountering â€Å"heretical” thoughts (Gerovitch 13). It is no extended surprising, therefore, if the political party required whole inhabitants of Oceania to use Newspeak †doing so was a very convenient way of indoctrinating them with Ingsoc beliefs. The bulky power of language to control the mind is non a fictional phenomenon. The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (n. d. ) argued that language situated how human bes perceived their environment (Thomas, Singh, Peccei, Jones and Wareing 39).\r\nThis assumptio n is dispassionate of two parts †lingual relativity and linguistic determinism. Linguistic relativity theorized that the languages of different cultures do not necessarily have equivalent systems of representation. Linguistic determinism, meanwhile, take a firm stand that a language not wholly reflected sealed aspects of reality but also influenced the speaker’s thought process (Thomas, Singh, Peccei, Jones and Wareing 25). It would be fair to tell that the premise behind the development and usage of Newspeak was establish on the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis.\r\nIn the novel’s appendix, it is revealed that Ingsoc was sooner known as English Socialism (Orwell 143). merely during the time of English Socialism, people spoke stock English. Consequently, they were exposed to radical ideas that inspired them to turn against the political party (Ji 1). In retaliation, the Party silenced them through penalisation and terror (Ji 1). The Party eventually viewed the per iod of English Socialism as one that was characterized with violence and lawlessness. bill English, meanwhile, was regarded as a relic of an anarchic by that must be discarded at all costs.\r\nThe Party even set a course of study in which they anticipate Standard English to be al teachy nonexistent †2050 (Orwell 143). In the appendix of the novel, Orwell wrote the Party’s ultimate dream †a purchase order wherein everyone accepted the semiofficial ideology even without the menace of punishment and terror (Ji 1). This was only possible, however, if they had no access code to subversive ideas. It must be noted that in the context of the novel, Standard English was regarded as the root system of dissident c at a timepts.\r\nThe Party therefore realized that Standard English must be replaced with a noteworthy and specially contrived language †Newspeak. When people spoke, comprehend, read and wrote only in Newspeak, they could be kept at a lower place con trol even without outright state persecution (Ji 1). Newspeak was the official language of Oceania and had been devised to meet the ideological needs of Ingsoc, or English Socialism. In the year 1984 there was not as yet anyone who apply Newspeak as his sole means of communication, either in speech or writing.\r\nThe leading articles in The Times were written in it, but this was a tour de force which could only be carried out by a specialist. It was expected that Newspeak would have finally superseded Oldspeak (or Standard English, as we should call it) by about the year 2050. (143) The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the (worldview) and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible.\r\nIt was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought †that is, a thought diverging from the principles of Ingsoc †should be literally unth inkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words. Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtile expression to every meaning that a Party member could properly wish to express, while excluding all other meanings and also the possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods. This was done partly by the excogitation of new\r\nwords, but chiefly by eliminating unenviable words and by stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all supplemental meanings whatever. To give a single example. The word throw overboard still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be employ in such statements as â€Å"This dog is free from lice” or â€Å"This field is free from weeds. ” It could not be used in its old sense of â€Å"politically free” or â€Å" ingeniously free” since political and intellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts, and were therefore of necessity nameless.\r\n(1 44) A person exploitation up with Newspeak as his sole language would no more know that equal had once had the secondary meaning of â€Å"politically equal,” or that free had once meant â€Å"intellectually free,” than for instance, a person who had never heard of chess would be aware of the secondary meanings attaching to magnate and rook. There would be many crimes and errors which it would be beyond his power to commit, simply because they were nameless and therefore unimaginable. (148-149)\r\nThis ambition, however, was not without serious consequences. The individual rights of the people of Oceania were severely violated. They ever lived in fear of government reprisal †landscapes across capital of the United Kingdom were bombarded with posters of â€Å"Big chum salmon” with the caption â€Å"Big Brother is Watching You” (Orwell 1). Two-way television sets †telescreens †were installed in all homes and public establishments in order to monitor the reality for any sign of subversive activity (thoughtcrime). Worse, the Party encouraged everyone to spy on one another.\r\n even off children were ordered to report their parents to the authorities (Thought Police) if they caught them committing a thoughtcrime. Winston Smith was among those who paid the ultimate price. Upon his arrest, he was taken to the Ministry of Love, where he was subjected to electroshock torture. Winston was afterwards taken to the infamous elbow room 101, where a prisoner was tortured by being exposed to his or her greatest fear. Winston’s primary fear was rats †he was therefore tortured by having a wire cage full of sharp-set rats brought near to his face.\r\nPetrified, Winston finally accepts Party ideology and was later released as a brainwashed individual. Sadly, it is obvious that Orwell’s warning in Nineteen Eighty-Four went unheeded. At present, there are still so many societies wherein people are stripped of their basic rights and liberties. What is more saddening is that some of the parties who are guilty of this wrongdoing are actually claiming that they are staunch advocates of freedom, justice and equality. They use elaborate propaganda to proclaim their â€Å"advocacy” while playacting in a completely opposite manner.\r\nThe Party used language in order to nourishment the people of Oceania silent, ignorant and oppressed. In doing so, the former turn out that evil prospers where good is silent. Orwell, on the other hand, used words in order to expose and adjure this atrocity. In doing so, he proved that the pen is mightier than the sword.\r\n work Cited\r\nCameron, Deborah. Verbal Hygiene. New York: Routledge, 1995. Gearon, Liam. Freedom of Expression and military personnel Rights: Historical, Literary and Political Contexts. Eastbourne: Sussex Academic Press, 2006. Gerovitch, Slava.\r\nFrom Newspeak to Cyberspeak: A tale of Soviet Cybernetics. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004. Ji, Fengyuan. Linguistic Engineering: Language and political sympathies in Mao’s China. Honolulu: University of how-do-you-do Press, 2004. Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four. n. p. : n. d. Thomas, Linda, Ishtla Singh, Jean Stilwell Peccei, Jason Jones, and Shan Wareing. Language, Society and Power: An Introduction. second ed. New York: Routledge, 2004. Trahair, R. C. S. Utopia and Utopians: A Historical Dictionary. Santa Barbara: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1999.\r\n'