Theme Of Newspeak In 1984

Language is one of the most important factors in one’s thoughts, beliefs, and actions. If one wished to completely have control over people, manipulating a language would be the most effective method. When language is manipulated, eradicated, or altered, “revolution is inhibited maybe even impossible” (McLaughlin). In the novel 1984, George Orwell introduces Newspeak, the official language of Oceania, which functions by reducing and altering the English language. Big Brother is the leader Oceania, a totalitarian state, who wishes to gain full control and manipulate the people of Oceania. Big Brother is able to effectively control the people of Oceania through Newspeak, a language that will eventually limit their freedom of thought, influence

The main focus of the people whose job is to create the Newspeak dictionary is to simplify and alter the English dictionary. “Newspeak is designed to be a self-contained linguistic system replacing, not grafted on, the English language,” (Fowler). The new linguistic system not only alters words, but grammar, compounds, and suffixes as well (Orwell 376- 381). In addition, Newspeak can be divided into three different categories: A Vocabulary, B Vocabulary, and C Vocabulary. A Vocabulary mainly consists of everyday, ordinary words used “for such things as eating, drinking, working,” etc. (Orwell 378). On the other hand, the B Vocabulary consisted of the words utilized for political purposes. The C Vocabulary consisted solemnly of scientific and technical terms. Even though Newspeak was founded on the English language, English speakers would find it almost impossible to comprehend many Newspeak

For example, there are telescreens, a television or a device similar to a camera. Telescreens are located in people’s homes and can never be turned off, only dimmed. They are not remarkably efficient since people are still able to commit crimes such as facecrime when looking away from the telescreen. In addition, people are not always in the frame of the camera, meaning that once they are out of the frame they are free to do whatever they want as long as they do not make any noise. Another example is junior spies, young children that idolize and are influenced by Big Brother from a young age. These children are “systematically turned against their parents and taught to spy on them and report their deviations,” (Orwell 168). Just like telescreens, junior spies are not really efficient since they are still kids and can be easily distracted from their tasks. Even though those two methods are effective to an extent, they do not compare to Newspeak. In our world, we have propaganda, which was seen in this year’s presidential elections though does not go to the same extent as Newspeak. Through propaganda, we are able to see how people are misled into believing in biased information. When one becomes aware of the truth behind propaganda one is surprised to see how biased and misleading the method of control is. Newspeak works the same exact way, though to