Language and Thought

George Orwell's Politics and the English Language brings up good points about the English language. What I liked most was the overall idea about how language has begun to limit thought rather than express it. Language nowadays seems to cover and confuse what we are saying- not clarify it. Now that this idea has taken hold in my mind, every time I write I find myself thinking about how vague I am. It's not specific. Writing is hard...

This concept that Orwell says applies to Newspeak in 1984 too. Orwell says "... to think clearly is a necessary first step towards political regeneration". Newspeak limits the ability to think, cutting down thousands of words and adding to the vagueness- no longer are their synonyms (although every synonym is slightly different from each other): a replacement of "good" for superior, beneficial, exceptional, and magnificent. Just good, doublegood, plusgood, ect. In Orwell's novel, he brings up the idea that soon, when Newspeak is all that the people of the Party know, they will not have the ability to rebel because the concepts and words to think of rebellion will simply not exist. On the last page, The vague words have multiple meanings and can be twisted any way.

I also found that Orwell's examples of modern English, while they sound much more knowledgeable, are also a lot more confusing. There are so many multi-syllable words that just fuzz up the mind. They flight right over me. Modern English seems to consist of long sentences and uncommon words. Like Orwell says, people have to think less and less- just using the phrases already created: "prose consists less and less of WORDS chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of PHRASES tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen-house". More limiting of the mind. Also, reading the well-known verse (not that I knew it) from ECCLESIASTES, his writing seemed much more meaningful and thoughtful than the impersonal scientific modern English version. It seemed almost like a joke.

When I write, I am going to try and think about what I am thinking about- and see that image in my mind. I want to make sure it makes sense. What Orwell writes sort of freaks me out- "A speaker who uses that kind of phraseology has gone some distance towards turning himself into a machine". It scares me because it is sort of true. I've always thought that thinking is what makes us human (Not the only thing, but pretty much at the top of the list). If we don't think as we write or speak, what are we? Also, Orwell comes up with an even more important "enemy of clear language": insincerity. Not only does language cause us to lose our intelligence, but our emotions as well. If thinking is at the top of the list of what makes us humanity, emotion is in second place. Our thoughts and emotions make us who we are. It seems that we are losing both. We gotta think for ourselves. I don't think that we are losing all thought and independence so far, but we are on our way. Perhaps that is a warning in 1984- our society is losing thought and independence, by language and loss of compassion and humanity! Even Winston, who thinks more than many other Outer Party citizens, kicks away that arm like a piece of garbage. Still gives me shivers. I trust in us humans, though, not to lose what we call humanity.