Orwell’s Neo-Language in Contemporary Press: Literature Foretells the Media Manipulation of Language

• Main Author: Lic. Samuel Todedano Buendía
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidad de La Laguna 2006-01-01
• Series: Revista Latina de Comunicación Social
• Subjects: journalism; newspeak; manipulation; Orwell; language.
• Online Access: http://www.ull.es/publicaciones/latina/200601toledano.htm

More than half a century since George Orwell wrote 1984 many of his visions of a future world could be taken into account as soon as we realise the way society works. It is not our aim to focus on the political aspects of this science fiction story but on the newspeak. In this book, Orwell introduces a detail explanation of the use of a new language to control human thinking. At this point, the author shows how effective media empire is to expand newspeak and, as a consequence, the Big Brother doctrine. Finally, what it seems to be just a piece of Orwell´s imagination becomes an illuminating means of explaining the way the media works, because, whether we like it or not, the news is written in newspeak.