George Orwell - 1984 / Thought & Language
MinnaP / Christopher / Antti / Leena ~ 00e
Page numbers are from the Signet Classic edition

Language as the instrument of control
• Language & media used as a propagandistic weapon (George Orwell / Eric Blair
was a political writer -> he must have had his share of media and language being
used in this purpose) 
• Slogans “War is peace, Freedom is slavery, Ignorance is strength”, “Big Brother
is watching you”
• One (major) theme in 1984: manipulating the language; the Party manipulates
language in order to manipulate thought
• Newspeak; translating old books etc. into Newspeak; “[the largest section of the
Records Department] consisted simply of persons whose duty it was to track down and collect all copies
of books, newspapers, and other documents which had been superseded and were due for destruction.”
(p. 37)
• Language is the primary (and only?) means of transmitting correct knowledge
from the past
• An example of how language is deeply associated with memories is the
childrens’ rhyme Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St. Clement’s which
Winston, Julia and O’Brien piece together
• Use of language in controlling thoughts is present in two ways; 1) ability of
language to create facts and 2) in how inaccurate statements (or downright lies)
were classified by the party as "errors" or "misprints."

Ministery of Truth and The Records Department
• The place where Winston works
• “... whose primary job was not to reconstruct the past but to supply the citizens of Oceania with
newspapers, films, textbooks, telescreen programs, plays novels - with every conceivable kind of
information, instruction, or entertainment, from a statue to a slogan, from a lyric poem to a biological
treatise, and from a child’s spellnig book to a Newspeak dictionary.” (p. 39)

Newspeak
• Newspeak was a language developed from Oldspeak, or Standard English
• It was expected that Newspeak would have finally superseded Oldspeak by
about the year 2050
• Narrowing down the vocabulary and destroying connotations -> narrowing the
mind & thought
• Words are given precise meanings; no interpretation is possible
• “Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall
make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every
concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined
and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten.” (p. 46)
• Vocabulary of Newspeak: impossible to even think of rebellious things because
of the lack of words & concepts; “The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium
of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all
other modes of thought impossible.” (p. 246)
• Newspeak features three vocabularies:
    1) The A vocabulary: everyday words used with simple thoughts
    2) The B vocabulary: political compound words that were used to impose a
desirable state in the user’s mind; examples “doublethink” and “Ingsoc”. Many of
these words meant the opposite of what they really were (thus applying the
concept of doublethink!)
    3) The C vocabulary: scientific and technical terms
• Syme talks to Winston about the development of the 11th edition of the
dictionary of Newspeak: “When we’ve finished with it, people like you will have to learn it all over
again. You think, I dare say, that our chief job is inventing new words. But not a bit of it! We’re
destroying words - scores of them, hundreds of them, every day. We’re cutting the language down to
the bone.” (p. 45)
• The languages changes constantly, as Syme explains to Winston: “Even the
literature of the Party will change. Even the slogans will change. Hwo could you have a slogan like
“freedom is slavery” when the concept of freedom has been abolished? The whole climate of thought will
be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking -
not needing to think.” (p. 47)
• Oldspeak would become obsolete but also impossible to understand or translate;
its words hold meanings and can be used to express ideas that would be
inexpressible in Newspeak 

Thoughtcrime
• Rebellious thoughts that are or can be made real/acted out
• Winston’s (first) thoughtcrime is his diary
• Thoughtcrimes were supposed to be totally eliminated by Newspeak; the
unthinkable crimes should become literally unthinkable
• “Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot
become conscious.” (p. 61)
• Winston writes: Thoughtcrime does not entail death; thoughtcrime IS death” (p. 27)
• Parsons tells Winston: “Thoughtcrime is a dreadful thing, old man,” he said sententiously. “It’s
insidious. It can get hold of you without your even knowing it. Do you know hwo it got hold of me? In
my sleep! Yes, that’s a fact. There I was, working away, trying to do my bit - never knew I had any bad
stuff in my mind at all. And then I started talking in my sleep.” (p. 192)

Doublethink
• Relationship between factual events and official information; if something has
happened in the past that the Party now denies then people agree with the Party
and hold the Party’s statmenet as the truth even if they know it is not correct
• The cornerstone of the Party's power; it links control of language with control of
thought. 
• “He, Winston Smith, knew that Oceania had been in alliance with Eurasia as short a time as four 
years ago. But where did that knowledge exist? Only in his own consciousness, which in any case must
soon be annihilated. And if all other accepted the lie which the Party imposed - if all records told the
same tale - then the lie passed into history and became truth.” (p. 32)
• Prevents communicating with the future (Winston tries to accomplish this by his
diary)
• After Winston has started writing his diary: “... and then fetched up with a bump against
the Newspeak word doublethink. For the first time the magnitude of what he had undertaken came home
to him. How could you communicate with the future? It was of its nature impossible.” (p. 10)
• “All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memories. “Reality control,”
they called it; in Newspeak, “doublethink.”” (p. 32) 

Memory holes
• The holes in the walls at Winston’s workplace, the Records Department of the
Ministery of Truth
• “When one knew that any document was due for destruction, or even when oen saw a scrap of waste
paper lying around, it was an automatic action to lift the flap of the nearest memory hole and drop it
in...” (p. 35)
• The ease with which facts are destroyed chills the reader; even more chilling is
the fact that these destroyed facts were never true facts in the first place
• The holes were used to destroy correct knowledge of the past; this enabled the
party to constantly create and re-create the past (and thus also the present)
• ““Who controls the past,” ran the Party slogan, “controls the future: who controls the present controls
the past.” And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered.” (p. 32)
• A bit ironically Winston also uses the memory hole to destroy the “I love you”
note from Julia
• “The mutability of the past is the central tenet of Ingsoc. Past events, it is argued, have no objective
existence, but survive only in written records and in human memories. The past is thatever the records
and memories agree upon. And since the Party is in full control of all records, and in equally full control
of the minds of its members, it follows that the past is whatever the Party chooses to make it. It also
follows that though the past is alterable, it never has been altered in any specific instance.” (p. 176)


TOKish issues the theme of language & thought arouses:
• Which sources can or can not be considered trustworthy?
• Why being critical towards knowledge is so important?
• Are history books trustworthy, and why?
• What is the role of language in thinking? Or in memories? Or facts?
• Ultimately, which knowledge is true and which not? Is it ever possible to know?