Viewing Orwellian Newspeak from the Angle of Linguistics: An “Economic” Redundancy

Liqiao Liang

doi:10.32996/ijllt.2021.4.12.16

Abstract

Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four has been widely studied, but not one of his important inventions in that novel. That is his Newspeak. From the perspective of linguistics, one of the most important characteristics of the development of language(s) is the feature of the economy, which means that language evolves in various ways to streamline and make it easier for its users to express themselves. This is not the case with the English variant "Newspeak" created by George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four, which is somehow simpler in form than standard English, which was named "Oldspeak", but "Newspeak" is actually in a sense simpler than "Oldspeak". Newspeak" is actually much more obscure than "Old speech" in a sense. The reason for this may be found in comparison with several typical language simplification movements. In order to investigate the issues, former researchers` findings would be referenced, and textual evidence would be found and discussed in the article.

Highlights

Liang Liqiao Postgraduate student of Graduate Institute of Interpretation and Translation (GIIT), Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai, China
"Newspeak is the new official language of Oceania in which the main character Winston Smith lives, and from the original text, Newspeak should have a considerable place in the book, because the author goes out of his way to introduce it in a chapter, and begins with the statement declaring that Newspeak is "the official language of Oceania (Orwell, 1949:278)
In order to prove this hypothesis, it is necessary to start with the studies of 1984 and the concept of "Newspeak" created by Orwell in the book, both at home and abroad, and to compare it with the real language simplification movement such as "Plain English", in order to reveal the problem in terms of the language itself as well as historical, political, and ideological aspects

Summary

Introduction

Linguistics; “Orwellian”; Nineteen Eighty-Four; Newspeak; Standard English; Language simplification movement In order to prove this hypothesis, it is necessary to start with the studies of 1984 and the concept of "Newspeak" created by Orwell in the book, both at home and abroad, and to compare it with the real language simplification movement such as "Plain English", in order to reveal the problem in terms of the language itself as well as historical, political, and ideological aspects.

Results

Conclusion