Newspeak: an Example of the Manipulation of Language as a Means to Maintain Power

This thesis examines the power of language in one of George Orwell’s most famous novels - Nineteen Eighty-Four - and how manipulating language can serve as a device for political, social and psychological control. To better understand how the creation of Newspeak, the language spoken by the inhabitants of the dystopian state of Oceania, was possible, Orwell’s interest in language will be analysed taking into account two of his essays, namely “New Words” and “Politics and the English Language”. After digging into the origins and the antecedents of Newspeak, its features will be analysed from a grammatical and lexical point of view. Finally, the thesis will attempt at showing how the manipulation and reduction of language can distort and diminish people thoughts and their ability to reason about politics. If the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is true and it is language that shapes reality rather than the other way round, then exploiting language means being able to change the way people perceive the reality around them, making them believe that objective truth does not exist. Thus, the members of the Inner and the Outer Party in Oceania are not human beings any longer, the imposition of a language such as Newspeak has among its consequences the dehumanisation of people, the inability of political reasoning and the loss of literature. The latter narrows the range of possible thoughts, does not allow the building of critical thinking skills and makes any knowledge of history impossible.