The book is
also about the corruption of language under the direction of the state. Creation of the
Newspeak dictionary is referred to often in the book. This dictionary attetmpts to limit the
amount of words available to the people (rather than increase the number as in our society).
The goal is to rid the language of any words (thoughts) that could work against the state. We
do all of our thinking through words (I know that some people would say that we do it through
images, but I think that it comes down to words in the end). Many of these words have
temperatures; all of them point to something. In the case of concrete nouns (pens, trees, etc),
the correspondence is usually clear; no one would call a car a pen. When it comes to the
non-concrete nouns, it gets a lot tougher; what does "love" refer to? What does
"loyalty" refer to? What does "freedom" refer to? If these words can be
taken out of the language, or made to point to something the STATE wants them to point to, then
our ability to think has been limited, and the less we can think the more we can be controlled.
It's more suble than beating us, but it may work all the better. After all, what's left when
our "ownlife" has become a bad thing?
If you want to read more of
's thoughts about this, I refer you to the article below.
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