Language as a Powerful Mind Control Weapon Essay Example for Free

Language as a Powerful Mind Control Weapon Essay Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) is a great tragic novel by English creator George Orwell. Much the same as the latter’s prior work, Animal Farm (1945), Nineteen Eighty-Four is a wake up call about the perils of autocracy. The novel’s fundamental character, Winston Smith, is a government employee entrusted with spreading government publicity through the manufacturing of records and political writing. Disappointed with such a robotic presence, Smith starts an uprising against the system †a move which later brought about his imprisonment and torment. The regard of Nineteen Eighty-Four can be ascribed fundamentally to its forthcoming and clear depiction of the propagation of business as usual to the detriment of individual rights (Gearon 65). A significant number of the novel’s wordings and thoughts, for example, â€Å"doublethink,† â€Å"Orwellian,† â€Å"Newspeak† and â€Å"Big Brother,† in the long run gained secure spots in the English language (Trahair 289). At present, a few scholars even utilize these articulations and ideas to reprimand abusive government approaches. The term â€Å"Orwellian,† for example, is presently a saying that alludes to any type of regularity that intently looks like the Party (Cameron 151). One of Orwell’s significant contentions in the novel is that language is the extremist government’s most impressive weapon of brain control. Through the utilization of tricky language and purposeful publicity, just as the change of language, the Party had the option to control the considerations and convictions of the residents of Oceania. Newspeak was the Party’s essential methods for misdirecting the residents of Oceania (Thomas, Singh, Peccei, Jones and Wareing 39). It was a defiled type of Standard English (referred to in the novel as Oldspeak) that mirrored the standards of Ingsoc. â€Å"Undesirable† words were disposed of from the most widely used language, while those that were held were deprived of â€Å"unorthodox† indications (Ji 1). Therefore, it got difficult to create different methods of thought in Newspeak (Orwell 144). Newspeak was something other than a language †it was the â€Å"(embodiment) of the authoritarian (outlook) of the Party members† (Gerovitch 12). To oblige interchange perspectives would expand the chance of experiencing â€Å"heretical† contemplations (Gerovitch 13). It is done astonishing, in this manner, if the Party required all occupants of Oceania to utilize Newspeak †doing so was an extremely helpful method of influencing them with Ingsoc convictions. The monstrous intensity of language to control the brain is certainly not an anecdotal wonder. The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (n. d. ) contended that language decided how people apparent their condition (Thomas, Singh, Peccei, Jones and Wareing 39). This supposition that is made out of two sections †etymological relativity and phonetic determinism. Semantic relativity conjectured that the dialects of various societies don't really have proportionate frameworks of portrayal. Etymological determinism, then, stated that a language mirrored certain parts of reality as well as affected the speaker’s manner of thinking (Thomas, Singh, Peccei, Jones and Wareing 25). It is reasonable for state that the reason behind the turn of events and utilization of Newspeak depended on the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. In the novel’s reference section, it is uncovered that Ingsoc was initially known as English Socialism (Orwell 143). In any case, during the hour of English Socialism, individuals spoke Standard English. Thus, they were presented to radical thoughts that enlivened them to betray the Party (Ji 1). In counter, the Party hushed them through discipline and dread (Ji 1). The Party inevitably saw the time of English Socialism as one that was described with viciousness and wilderness. Standard English, in the mean time, was viewed as a relic of an anarchic past that must be disposed of no matter what. The Party even set a year where they anticipated that Standard English should be as of now nonexistent †2050 (Orwell 143). In the addendum of the novel, Orwell composed the Party’s extreme dream †a general public wherein everybody acknowledged the official philosophy even without the danger of discipline and fear (Ji 1). This was just conceivable, be that as it may, in the event that they had no entrance to incendiary thoughts. It must be noticed that with regards to the novel, Standard English was viewed as the wellspring of nonconformist ideas. The Party in this manner understood that Standard English must be supplanted with a solitary and uncommonly devised language †Newspeak. At the point when individuals talked, heard, read and composed distinctly in Newspeak, they could be monitored even without through and through state oppression (Ji 1). Newspeak was the official language of Oceania and had been contrived to meet the ideological needs of Ingsoc, or English Socialism. In the year 1984 there was not so far any individual who utilized Newspeak as his sole methods for correspondence, either in discourse or composing. The main articles in The Times were written in it, yet this was a visit de power which must be completed by a pro. It was normal that Newspeak would have at long last supplanted Oldspeak (or Standard English, as we should call it) by about the year 2050. (143) The reason for Newspeak was not exclusively to give a mode of articulation to the (perspective) and mental propensities legitimate to the enthusiasts of Ingsoc, yet to make every other method of thought incomprehensible. It was planned that when Newspeak had been received unequivocally and it slipped Oldspeak's mind, a shocking idea †that is, an idea veering from the standards of Ingsoc †ought to be truly unbelievable, in any event so far as thought is subject to words. Its jargon was so developed as to give definite and frequently unobtrusive articulation to each implying that a Party part could appropriately wish to communicate, while barring every other importance and furthermore the chance of showing up at them by roundabout techniques. This was done mostly by the development of new words, however mostly by taking out unwanted words and by stripping such words as survived from unconventional implications, thus far as conceivable of every single auxiliary significance whatever. To give a solitary model. The word free despite everything existed in Newspeak, yet it must be utilized in such explanations as â€Å"This hound is liberated from lice† or â€Å"This field is liberated from weeds. † It couldn't be utilized in its old feeling of â€Å"politically free† or â€Å"intellectually free† since political and scholarly opportunity not, at this point existed even as ideas, and were in this way of need anonymous. (144) An individual growing up with Newspeak as his sole language would no more realize that equivalent had once had the auxiliary significance of â€Å"politically equal,† or that free had once implied â€Å"intellectually free,† than for example, an individual who had never known about chess would know about the optional implications joining to sovereign and rook. There would be numerous wrongdoings and mistakes which it would be past his capacity to submit, essentially in light of the fact that they were anonymous and along these lines incomprehensible. (148-149) This desire, be that as it may, was not without genuine outcomes. The individual privileges of the individuals of Oceania were seriously damaged. They continually lived in dread of government response †scenes across London were besieged with banners of â€Å"Big Brother† with the subtitle â€Å"Big Brother is Watching You† (Orwell 1). Two-way TVs †telescreens †were introduced in all homes and open foundations so as to screen the masses for any indication of rebellious action (thoughtcrime). More awful, the Party urged everybody to keep an eye on each other. Indeed, even youngsters were requested to report their folks to the specialists (Thought Police) in the event that they discovered them carrying out a thoughtcrime. Winston Smith was among the individuals who died. Upon his capture, he was taken to the Ministry of Love, where he was exposed to electroshock torment. Winston was a while later taken to the notorious Room 101, where a detainee was tormented by being presented to their biggest dread. Winston’s base dread was rodents †he was in this way tormented by having a wire confine loaded with starving rodents brought close to his face. Frozen, Winston at last acknowledges Party belief system and was later discharged as a programmed person. Tragically, clearly Orwell’s cautioning in Nineteen Eighty-Four went unnoticed. At present, there are still such huge numbers of social orders wherein individuals are deprived of their fundamental rights and freedoms. Is all the more disheartening that a portion of the gatherings who are liable of this bad behavior are really asserting that they are steadfast supporters of opportunity, equity and equity. They utilize expound purposeful publicity to announce their â€Å"advocacy† while acting in a totally different way. The Party utilized language so as to keep the individuals of Oceania quiet, uninformed and persecuted. In doing as such, the previous demonstrated that malevolent succeeds where great is quiet. Orwell, then again, utilized words so as to uncover and battle this abomination. In doing as such, he demonstrated that the pen is mightier than the blade. Works Cited Cameron, Deborah. Verbal Hygiene. New York: Routledge, 1995. Gearon, Liam. Opportunity of Expression 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. Semantic Engineering: Language and Politics in Mao’s 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 Power: An Introduction. second ed. New York: Routledge, 2004.