Orwell demonstrates the deceptive effect of various political terms, showing how elevated, complex and abstract language actively disguises ugly and violent concrete realities. Independent thinking is necessary for a healthy political life.Īs corrupted language smothers independent, original thinking, it thus serves a political purpose. By using set phrases, they pantomime ideology without thinking. In this way, political writers end up following a party line. When a person becomes lazy they allow their language to think for them. The list includes unoriginal or mixed metaphors, pretentious diction, and abstract or meaningless language. He presents a list of corrupting habits that cause writers to think poorly and thus write poorly. As Orwell will show, language can also manipulate those who use it unconsciously.
As an instrument, language can be manipulated for various purposes. This disempowering idea, he says, derives from an understanding of language as a “natural growth” rather than an “instrument which we shape for our own purposes” (251). George Orwell’s essay “ Politics and the English Language,” begins by refuting common presumptions that hold that the decline of the English language is a reflection of the state of society and politics, that this degeneration is inevitable, and that it’s hopeless to resist it.
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