George Orwell’s work 1984 is a utopian social and political science fiction book and morality story. Issues and topics of the novel include totalitarianism’s effects, surveillance, and coercive regimentation of individuals and activities of the community. The dictatorial regime in the story was designed after Communist Russia and Nazi Germany by the author, who was a liberal democrat. The concepts of Newspeak and Doublethink, depicted by Orwell, reflect their main notions in modern trends, everyday activities, and spheres of life.
The fictitious dialect of Oceania, an authoritarian unitary state that is the subject of George Orwell’s book 1984, is called Newspeak. The entire purpose of Newspeak is to confine the breadth of human cognition, so people will make thoughtcrime extremely hard to do since no words to describe it will be present (Orwell 67). Through the usage of this artificial language, the book, which was released in 1949, has influenced the vocabulary of different social and political experts to this day (Dunder and Pavlovski 583). In general, the dialect was created to satisfy the doctrinal prerequisites of English Socialism.
In his fantasy book, George Orwell invented the word Doublethink, an element of the fictitious Newspeak language. Doublethink is the ability to sustain two opposing viewpoints in one’s head simultaneously and approve both of them, frequently in contradiction to one’s recollections or perceptions of reality (Orwell 270). Hypocrisy is linked to Doublethink, but it is not the same. In addition, concerning Doublethink, whatever individuals may think about how the previous events truly occurred, the chronology of history is documented as it is (Martin-Jones). The Party (leading political force) employed Newspeak and Doublethink in order to regulate its residents’ language and, as a result, their thoughts (Orwell 270). The purpose of these concepts is to ensure the situation of total control.
The first modern real-life example that was selected to reflect the concepts is the comparison with the language of journalism. In 1984, with the help of Newspeak and Doublethink, Orwell portrayed telescreens that are not possible to be turned off and that capture and control every word and action of the individuals (Orwell 95). Similar to how telescreens constantly broadcast programs and propaganda to their audiences, mass media systems now determine what individuals see and how they perceive the world. Under the strict supervision of the Party, the author’s characters attempt to remove particular beliefs from people’s brains.
It is elaborated in a manner that reflects how authorities are beginning to monitor the ideas and behaviors of individuals influenced by the Internet. The second instance that can be connected to the concepts of Newspeak and Doublethink is the utilization of the modern texting language. Newspeak was created with the goal of limiting the spectrum of ideas available to its speakers (Orwell 34). It accomplished the objective by restricting the number of words a person may use, similar to how texting language is used to reduce a letter.
To summarize, George Orwell’s work 1984 describes the dictatorial regime and activities of the Party, which is the ruling political force in the country. Newspeak represents a fictitious language of the state with a reduced syntax, and a limited vocabulary used to eliminate a person’s ability to reason. Doublethink is a part of Newspeak that possesses the ability to sustain two opposing viewpoints in one’s head. The examples of mass media and texting languages prove the presence of the ideas of the two concepts in modern society.
Works Cited
Dunder, Ivan and Marko Pavlovski. “Through the Limits of Newspeak: An Analysis of the Vector Representation of Words in George Orwell’s 1984.” 2019 42nd International Convention on Information and Communication Technology, Electronics and Microelectronics, 2019, pp. 583-588.
Martin-Jones, David. Cinema Against Doublethink: Ethical Encounters with the Lost Pasts of World History. Routledge, 2018.
Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four. Books on Demand, 2021.