Language as a Powerful Mind Control Weapon Essay

Nineteen lxxxiv (1949) is a classic dystopian refreshful by English ca character George Orwell. Akin to the latters earlier work, Animal Farm (1945), Nineteen Eighty-Four is a ad admonishery tale about the dangers of totalitarianism. The raws main character, Winston Smith, is a civil servant tasked with disseminating government propaganda with with(predicate) the forging of records and political literature. Disillusi aced with such a mechanistic existence, Smith begins an uprising against the regime a move which later resulted in his incarceration and torture.The esteem of Nineteen Eighty-Four can be attributed principally to its frank and vivid portrayal of the perpetuation of the status quo at the expense of individual rights (Gearon 65). M whatsoever of the novels terminologies and ideas, such as doublethink, Orwellian, Newspeak and greathearted Brother, eventually acquired secure places in the English spoken language (Trahair 289). At present, some thinkers even use these expressions and c erstwhilepts to criticize repressive government policies.The term Orwellian, for instance, is currently an idiom that refers to any form of normalcy that closely resembles the Party (Cameron 151). One of Orwells major arguments in the novel is that language is the totalitarian governments most powerful weapon of assessment control. Through the usage of shoddy language and propaganda, as well as the modification of language, the Party was able to manipulate the views and beliefs of the citizens of Oceania. Newspeak was the Partys primary means of misleading the citizens of Oceania (Thomas, Singh, Peccei, Jones and Wareing 39).It was a corrupted form of Standard English (known in the novel as Oldspeak) that reflected the principles of Ingsoc. Undesirable words were eliminated from the lingua franca, objet dart those that were retained were stripped of unorthodox denotations (Ji 1). Consequently, it became impossible to progress other modes of thought in Ne wspeak (Orwell 144). Newspeak was more than just a language it was the (embodiment) of the totalitarian (mindset) of the Party members (Gerovitch 12).To bind alternate views would increase the possibility of encountering heretical thoughts (Gerovitch 13). It is no longer surprising, therefore, if the Party required all inhabitants of Oceania to use Newspeak doing so was a in truth convenient way of indoctrinating them with Ingsoc beliefs. The immense power of language to control the mind is not a fictional phenomenon. The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (n. d. ) argued that language determined how human beings perceived their environment (Thomas, Singh, Peccei, Jones and Wareing 39).This boldness is composed of two parts linguistic relativity and linguistic determinism. Linguistic relativity theorized that the languages of different cultures do not necessarily have equivalent systems of representation. Linguistic determinism, meanwhile, asserted that a language not simply reflected cer tain aspects of reality but also influenced the speakers thought process (Thomas, Singh, Peccei, Jones and Wareing 25). It would be second-rate to say that the premise behind the development and usage of Newspeak was based on the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis.In the novels appendix, it is revealed that Ingsoc was originally known as English Socialism (Orwell 143). But during the time of English Socialism, people spoke Standard English. Consequently, they were weakend to radical ideas that inspired them to turn against the Party (Ji 1). In retaliation, the Party silenced them through punishment and terror (Ji 1). The Party eventually viewed the period of English Socialism as one that was characterized with force out and lawlessness. Standard English, meanwhile, was regarded as a relic of an anarchic past that must be discarded at all costs.The Party even set a year in which they expected Standard English to be already nonexistent 2050 (Orwell 143). In the appendix of the novel, Orwell w rote the Partys ultimate dream a society wherein everyone accepted the official political theory even without the threat of punishment and terror (Ji 1). This was only possible, however, if they had no access to subversive ideas. It must be noted that in the context of the novel, Standard English was regarded as the source of dissident concepts.The Party therefore realized that Standard English must be replaced with a singular and specially contrived language Newspeak. When people spoke, heard, read and wrote only in Newspeak, they could be kept under control even without outright state persecution (Ji 1). Newspeak was the official language of Oceania and had been devised to meet the ideological needfully of Ingsoc, or English Socialism. In the year 1984 there was not as yet anyone who utilize Newspeak as his sole means of communication, either in speech or writing.The leading articles in The Times were compose in it, but this was a tour de force which could only be carried o ut 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 target 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 sword all other modes of thought impossible.It 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 unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words. Its vocabulary was so constructed as to piss exact and often very subtle 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 invention of newwords, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words and by stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all secondary meanings whatever. To give a single example. The word free still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be used in such statements as This dog is free from lice or This field is free from weeds. It could not be used in its old sense of politically free or intellectually free since political and intellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts, and were therefore of necessity nameless.(144) A somebody growing up with Newspeak as his sole language would no more know that equal had once had the secondary meaning of politically equal, or that free had once meant intellectually free, than for instance, a person who had never heard of chess would be aware of the secondary meanings attaching to queen 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)This ambition, however, was not without serious consequences. The individual rights of the people of Oceania were firmly violated. They constantly lived in fear of government reprisal landscapes across London were bombarded with posters of Big Brother with the caption 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 populace for any sign of subversive activity (thoughtcrime). Worse, the Party encouraged everyone to spy on one another.Even 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 interpreted to the Ministry of Love, where he was subjected to electroshock torture. Winston was afterwards taken to the infamous Room 101, where a prisoner was pain by being exposed to his or her greatest fear. Winstons primal fear was rats he was therefore tortured by having a wire cage full of starving rats brought near to his face.Petrified, Winston finally accepts Party ideology and was later released as a brainwashed individual. Sadly, it is obvious that Orwells warning in Nineteen Eighty-Four went unheeded. At present, there are still so many societies wherein people are stripped of their primary 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, referee and equality. They use elaborate propaganda to proclaim their advocacy while acting in a completely frigid manner.The Party used language in order to keep the people of Oceania silent, ignorant and oppressed. In doing so, the precedent proved that evil prospers where good is silent. Orwell, on the other hand, used words in order to expose and fight this atrocity. In doing so, he proved that the pen is mightier than the sword.Works CitedCameron, Deborah. Verbal Hygiene. New Yo rk Routledge, 1995. Gearon, Liam. Freedom of cheek and Human Rights Historical, Literary and Political Contexts. Eastbourne Sussex Academic Press, 2006. Gerovitch, Slava.From Newspeak to Cyberspeak A History of Soviet Cybernetics. Cambridge MIT Press, 2004. Ji, Fengyuan. Linguistic Engineering terminology and Politics in Maos China. Honolulu University of Hawaii 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 provide An Introduction. 2nd ed. New York Routledge, 2004. Trahair, R. C. S. Utopia and Utopians A Historical Dictionary. Santa Barbara Greenwood Publishing Group, 1999.