An Inconvenient Truth, written by Al Gore. Unlike a typical book divided into chapters, Gore delivery ethos to interlace personal accounts with scientific data, pathos and pictures to highlight his argument. The writing is delivered at a tertiary level, yet has a certain level of social informality. Why would this choice have been made? Bipartisan the language is not, highly emotive it is. Can this approach silence the other side? Does Gore use the technique of “controlling the dictionary” to underscore his points of view? Why have the images been chosen? What is the syntax of these images and do they add or subtract from the written language offered? At times the other side is presented as hiding or deliberately changing the truth without scientific evidence. How can the presenter of scientific truth not be a scientist himself yet attacks the other side for presenting their own opinions? Truth is the core meta function of Gores presentation delivered in a multimodal vision of hope.
Are all issues political issues? According to George Orwell the answer is yes. (Ref 2) As a politician Gore does not take a step back when using his profile to politicising his truth, yet cleverly camouflages this tactic in the form of a reflective question. By using an Orwellian tactic of simple terminology the reflective question is designed to bring the audience onto the side of an inconvenient truth, prior to launching into the political attack of big lobbyists, those making money and the conservative right censoring those who reaffirm Gores views. Orwell too was a great advocate for the elimination of redundant syntax already posed by others. (Ref 2) According to Gore climate sceptics hold one of just a handful of views and jump from one to ano...
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Orwell, George. “Politics and the English Language.” George Orwell: Critical Essays. London: Harvill Secker: 2009. 270-286. Print.
In the film, Gore talked about the ice core drills that were taken in Antarctica for studding carbon dioxide levels in preceding years. “When the snow falls it traps little bubbles of atmosphere. They can go in and measure how much CO2 was in the atmosphere the year that snow fell.” Gore’s partner pointed at the specific part of one of the core drills and said “right here is where the US Congress passed the Clean Air Act.” He could see a significant change, “just a couple of years after that law was passed, it 's very clearly distinguishable.” The Clean Air Act was passed in December 17, 1963, and the significant change from pollutants in the atmosphere was obvious. Generation of that time have experienced clean ecosystem. But what about present? The technology and industries have grown since then. Present pollutions contaminating the atmosphere more than ever before. New similar acts must have been passed decades ago. It is disappointing when candidates who are running for president pledge to something’s just to get more votes, and once they are, they would never bother about keeping the promise. Like the Al Gore said “in 2000 my opponent pledged to regulate the CO2 and that was not a pledge that was kept.” This is immoral and unethical concerning society and nature. Today, global warming issue is also politically ignored. When Gore showed the chart with predicted CO2 level in 50 years from 2005, the
Fowler equates the short and abbreviated language of Newspeak to the language that the media uses in today’s world. These examples were useful in helping me understand his interpretation of Orwell’s purpose better because of how tangible and relatable his examples were. However, Fowler also interpreted the text in relation to the time period that 1984 was written. Because technology was not as developed then, Fowler uses other media platforms, such as newspapers and articles, to convey Orwell’s message within the context of his time. Fowler’s examples and analysis made me realize how accurately Orwell foreshadowed the way media can manipulate information. Although his prediction that the world may be governed by totalitarian governments did not pan out, Orwell’s prediction of the development of media and its use of abbreviated language and short concise titles to convey ambiguous yet influential messages was generally accurate. Fowler’s analysis also helped me to better understand the purpose of Newspeak in the novel. While I was reading 1984, it was clear to me that Newspeak was a symbol of power and a platform through which the Party controlled what information was being relayed to the public. However, the analysis that the people of Oceania internalized the language in a way that made them into machines without individual thought was something new to me. Overall, Fowler’s essay was very convincing and helped to expand my knowledge of Newspeak and what it
Orwell, George. “Politics and the English Language.” The Concious Reader. Ed. Caroline Shrobes, Michael Shrugrue, Marc DiPaolo, Christian J. Matuschek. Longman: Boston, 2006. 445-447. Print.
Despite the warnings of Orwell through both his essay and dystopian novel, bad English is still used today, and could be argued to affect more English than it did during Orwell’s life. The consequences are also just as he predicted, those who control the language are able to wield control over the thoughts of others. The usage of poor quality English by media has he effect of making the recipients of news more detached from events and as a consequence, more self-focused. The clumsiness and foolishness imposed by bad English ultimately degrading thought, politics, culture, and society is what Orwell had foretold. This is the English tragedy that is disregarded, modern thoughts of “English” are not of language but of the English Queen.
From Abraham Lincoln to Barack Obama, all politicians have the same mindset. They all want to convince the public of their ideas and beliefs. These people are so good at what they do, they may convince citizens of beliefs they never thought they ever would. Most people will never understand how Germans could agree with what their own country was doing during World War 2, however, they never had the personal influence of Adolf Hitler. Not many people want to have King Jong-un as their leader, but the people in North Korea love him. Whether it is good or bad they do their best and Al Gore is no different from the other politicians in the world. His goal was to convince the world of the impossible. Since the beginning of
Al Gore is a very well know man across the world in many developed countries. His work on climate change and his political career is what got him to where he is now. He was born in Washington, D.C. on March, 31 1948. He attended Harvard University, where he got his degree in government with high honors. He was also in Vanderbilt Law School many years later, after his time being a military journalist. He dropped out of this school to become a politician serving in the house for four terms and many years in the senate. This all leads up to him running for president in 1988 and losing the primary. In 1992 Bill Clinton chose him as his Vice president for his election as president, they won their two terms and Gore ran in the 2000 election and
Orwell, George. "Politics and the English Language." Escholz, Paul, Alfred Rosa and Virginia Clark. Language Awareness: Readings for College Writers. 11th. Boston: Bedford St. Martin's, 2013. 234-244. Print.
Popular British writer and journalist George Orwell argues in his short essay Politics and the English Language, about the prose and writing styles of the politicians and other literary individuals in his time, many of whom which relied heavily on Modern English of the time period. This type of English was dependent upon fancy terms and phrases, which were heavily used to help politicians in getting people to support their cause. He argues that the politicians and the literary figures of his time are ultimately destroying the English language, while believing they are improving it greatly. Politicians who use Modern English greatly corrupt the language as a whole by making their ideas more complex and disorganized, making their original idea unrecognizable. Orwell claims that the use of fancy words and phrases could be crippling to the foundation of the English language. With Orwell’s life experiences described in his essay Why I Write, he is able to see past the weak persuasive rhetoric used by literary figures and can strongly criticize their speech and writing styles without fear of retaliation. By using examples of other writers work and his own personal thoughts about the correct use of language, Orwell clearly argues his position of improving the flaws of the English language to make it better for all of society. His ideals can be highly understood, even in modern society where people fully believe that making their own contribution to the English language is necessary and they unknowingly begin a grammatical whirlwind that is beneficial to no one.
Cerjak ,The English Journal, Vol. 76, No. 5 (Sep., 1987), pp. 55-57 Published by: National Council of Teachers of English
In Johnson’s preface to A Dictionary of the English Language, Johnson argues the importance of preserving language. Other dialects had a produced their own dictionaries, such as the French and Italians. Various writers of the eighteenth century were alarmed at the fact that there was no standard for the English language, since there was no standard it could easily become extinct. Johnson explored many points, such as how and why languages change as well as how many words are formed.
In Orwell’s novel, Newspeak is the new form of communication which replaces English. This fictional language is used to control the thoughts of others by simplifying the English language. Newspeak removes synonyms and antonyms, replacing them with smaller, simpler words and concepts. Negative terms have also been eliminated. Winston Smith, a member of the outer party, is determined throughout the story to test the limits of his corrupt society and rebel against the ...
English is a language that is constantly evolving. From Shakespearian time and its use of thou to modern day where everything is “lit” it is clear there have been several major changes, but is his article “Politics and the English Language” George Orwell argues that these changes are for the worse. He reveals that the English language has fallen from where it once was. Modern English is cluttered with outdated, meaningless phrases and fail to ever be concrete or make a definite point. Orwell sees these faults and hopes to repair the failures in the system by giving his readers two sets of rules to follow, however he constantly breaks his own rules throughout his entire article. By breaking his own rules, Orwell makes clear to the reader the
George Orwell’s essay, “Politics and the English Language” discusses the effect that political and economic changes have on the language of a society. Orwell’s essay is based largely on his opinion that the English language has declined as a result of the economic and political changes that the world experienced. He explains how simple English is more effective for telling someone what you want to say instead of using large, confusing and foreign words that will only make you sound smart. Orwell argues that these words are useless and that they fill our essays with words that take away the meaning of the essay and have no value. Orwell creates a tone of dominance over his writing. He makes readers feel that he is in charge of his writing and
Subpoint A: Not long ago, a documentary film called “An Inconvenient truth” came out in 2006. This film raised international public awareness of climate change and reenergizing the environmental movement. A former U.S Vice president Al Gore campaigned to educate citizens about global warming through a simp...