Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of political parties. GradeSaver, 9 March 2017 Web.In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. "Politics and the English Language Study Guide". Next Section Politics and the English Language Summary Buy Study Guide How To Cite in MLA Format Lynch, Molly. He offers a helpful toolkit for the political writer to use in order to resist being indoctrinated by language. The essay’s thesis is an evolving one, ultimately aiming to debunk the idea that there’s no hope in resisting the intellectually corrosive effects of political speech, nor the lies produced by highly abstract language for political purpose. He demonstrates in clear terms the way that abstract language is a form of lying: namely, when the language used to describe a party’s political agenda is far removed from the violence for which it apologizes. Rather than thinking independently, people pantomime a party line.Īlong with hackneyed phrases and meaningless redundancies, abstract or elevated political language is one of his main targets. He describes a form of indoctrination that happens when people use familiar turns of phrase in political speech. One of his main arguments is that repetitions derive from unoriginal thinking and unoriginal thinking leads to repetitions. On the contrary, Orwell feels that old, dead words should be abandoned, as he argues for original and independent thinking that comes from asserting agency in language-specifically in political speech. The essay is not, as it might at first glance appear, a defense of archaic or traditionally “proper” uses of English. It presents an argument for clear, simple, unpretentious language that attempts to represent its meaning-hence the unambiguous title. The essay is about the connection between politics and poor uses of language. Fittingly, George Orwell's essay “ Politics and the English Language” is accurately described by its title.
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