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Newspeak
In the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (also published as 1984), by George Orwell, Newspeak is the fictional language of Oceania, a totalitarian superstate. To meet the ideological requirements of Ingsoc (English Socialism) in Oceania, the Party created Newspeak, which is a controlled language of simplified grammar and limited vocabulary designed to limit a person's ability for critical thinking. The Newspeak language thus limits the person's ability to articulate and communicate abstract concepts, such as personal identity, self-expression, and free will, which are thoughtcrimes, acts of personal independence that contradict the ideological orthodoxy of Ingsoc collectivism.
In the appendix to the novel, "The Principles of Newspeak", Orwell explains that Newspeak follows most rules of English grammar, yet is a language characterised by a continually diminishing vocabulary; complete thoughts are reduced to simple terms of simplistic meaning. The political contractions of Newspeak – Ingsoc (English Socialism), Minitrue (Ministry of Truth), Miniplenty (Ministry of Plenty) – are similar to Nazi and Soviet contractions in the 20th century, such as Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei), politburo (Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union), Comintern (Communist International), kolkhoz (collective farm), and Komsomol (communist youth union). Newspeak contractions usually are syllabic abbreviations meant to conceal the speaker's ideology from the speaker and the listener.
As a constructed language, Newspeak is a language of planned phonology, limited grammar, and finite vocabulary, much like the phonology, grammar, and vocabulary of Basic English (British American Scientific International Commercial English), which was proposed by the British linguist Charles Kay Ogden in 1930. As a controlled language without complex constructions or ambiguous usages, Basic English was designed to be easy to learn, to sound, and to speak, with a vocabulary of 850 words composed specifically to facilitate the communication of facts, not the communication of abstract thought. While employed as a propagandist by BBC during the Second World War (1939–1945), Orwell grew to believe that the constructions of Basic English, as a controlled language, imposed functional limitations upon the speech, the writing, and the thinking of the users.
When Orwell visited his aunt Ellen Kate Limouzin and her husband Eugène Lanti in Paris, the couple conversed in the constructed international auxiliary language of Esperanto at home as Lanti refused to speak French. Orwell suffered as a non-speaker of Esperanto and developed a strong dislike for the language, which some scholars have suggested as influential in the development of Newspeak.
In the essay "Politics and the English Language" (1946) and in "The Principles of Newspeak" appendix to Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), Orwell discusses the communication function of English and contemporary ideological changes in usage during the 1940s. In the novel, the linguistic decadence of English is the central theme about language-as-communication.In the essay, Standard English was characterised by dying metaphors, pretentious diction, and high-flown rhetoric. Orwell concludes: "I said earlier that the decadence of our language is probably curable. Those who deny this [decadence] may argue that language merely reflects existing social conditions, and that we cannot influence its development, by any direct tinkering with words or constructions."
Orwell argued that the decline of English went hand-in-hand with the decline of intellectualism among society, and thus facilitated the manipulation of listeners and speakers and writers into consequent political chaos. The story of Nineteen Eighty-Four portrays the connection between authoritarian régimes and doublespeak language, earlier discussed in "Politics and the English Language":
When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer. I should expect to find – this is a guess, which I have not sufficient knowledge to verify – that the German, Russian and Italian languages have all deteriorated in the last ten or fifteen years, as a result of dictatorship. But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.
In contemporary political usage, the term Newspeak is used to impugn an opponent who introduces new definitions of words to suit their political agenda.
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Newspeak
In the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (also published as 1984), by George Orwell, Newspeak is the fictional language of Oceania, a totalitarian superstate. To meet the ideological requirements of Ingsoc (English Socialism) in Oceania, the Party created Newspeak, which is a controlled language of simplified grammar and limited vocabulary designed to limit a person's ability for critical thinking. The Newspeak language thus limits the person's ability to articulate and communicate abstract concepts, such as personal identity, self-expression, and free will, which are thoughtcrimes, acts of personal independence that contradict the ideological orthodoxy of Ingsoc collectivism.
In the appendix to the novel, "The Principles of Newspeak", Orwell explains that Newspeak follows most rules of English grammar, yet is a language characterised by a continually diminishing vocabulary; complete thoughts are reduced to simple terms of simplistic meaning. The political contractions of Newspeak – Ingsoc (English Socialism), Minitrue (Ministry of Truth), Miniplenty (Ministry of Plenty) – are similar to Nazi and Soviet contractions in the 20th century, such as Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei), politburo (Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union), Comintern (Communist International), kolkhoz (collective farm), and Komsomol (communist youth union). Newspeak contractions usually are syllabic abbreviations meant to conceal the speaker's ideology from the speaker and the listener.
As a constructed language, Newspeak is a language of planned phonology, limited grammar, and finite vocabulary, much like the phonology, grammar, and vocabulary of Basic English (British American Scientific International Commercial English), which was proposed by the British linguist Charles Kay Ogden in 1930. As a controlled language without complex constructions or ambiguous usages, Basic English was designed to be easy to learn, to sound, and to speak, with a vocabulary of 850 words composed specifically to facilitate the communication of facts, not the communication of abstract thought. While employed as a propagandist by BBC during the Second World War (1939–1945), Orwell grew to believe that the constructions of Basic English, as a controlled language, imposed functional limitations upon the speech, the writing, and the thinking of the users.
When Orwell visited his aunt Ellen Kate Limouzin and her husband Eugène Lanti in Paris, the couple conversed in the constructed international auxiliary language of Esperanto at home as Lanti refused to speak French. Orwell suffered as a non-speaker of Esperanto and developed a strong dislike for the language, which some scholars have suggested as influential in the development of Newspeak.
In the essay "Politics and the English Language" (1946) and in "The Principles of Newspeak" appendix to Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), Orwell discusses the communication function of English and contemporary ideological changes in usage during the 1940s. In the novel, the linguistic decadence of English is the central theme about language-as-communication.In the essay, Standard English was characterised by dying metaphors, pretentious diction, and high-flown rhetoric. Orwell concludes: "I said earlier that the decadence of our language is probably curable. Those who deny this [decadence] may argue that language merely reflects existing social conditions, and that we cannot influence its development, by any direct tinkering with words or constructions."
Orwell argued that the decline of English went hand-in-hand with the decline of intellectualism among society, and thus facilitated the manipulation of listeners and speakers and writers into consequent political chaos. The story of Nineteen Eighty-Four portrays the connection between authoritarian régimes and doublespeak language, earlier discussed in "Politics and the English Language":
When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer. I should expect to find – this is a guess, which I have not sufficient knowledge to verify – that the German, Russian and Italian languages have all deteriorated in the last ten or fifteen years, as a result of dictatorship. But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.
In contemporary political usage, the term Newspeak is used to impugn an opponent who introduces new definitions of words to suit their political agenda.