“Politics and the English Language” is an essay by George Orwell published in 1946 where he criticizes the way written English language has evolved. Orwell uses five texts from various contemporary authors to identify in them the “perversions” in the evolution of the language. He then classifies these into four main fallacies: “dying metaphors” or cliches, “operators or verbal false limbs” or the elimination of simple verbs and the use of passive voice rather than active, “pretentious diction” or terms used to impress rather than to convey meaning, and “meaningless words” or paragraphs that usually do not give much meaning.
Moreover, the author emphasizes and criticizes the use of foreign languages amongst the English for useless sophistication. The writer’s main purpose is to reflect this decadence of the English language to the general decline in contemporary society and to relate it to Politics. In fact, according to Orwell, language is used for political purposes to transform it into a vague and meaningless set of prose phrases in order to conceal truths rather than express thoughts.
This is exemplified with the case of political speeches, articles, and propagandas. Finally, he suggests a set of simple rules that could contribute to the reversability of the decay of English. Orwell seems to be quite objective since –for instance- he involves the reader in his text and even invites him to find some of the faults criticized, in it.
The Essay on A Global Language: English Language
English is an international language spoken all over the world that was originally borrowed from the world. If English is used as a global language, there might be some advantages related to communication and business. However, there are also several disadvantages in terms of losing mother tongue and taking time and money. The advantages outweigh the disadvantages, so English should be made the ...
Also, the six rules that the auhtor suggests to simplify English, could be very beneficial even for contemporary students in their writings. However, it seems that Orwell has used a prescriptive and quite subjective approach in his essay by which he ‘finds what he is looking for’ based on the ideology he already believes in, that tends to be emerging from deep-rooted conspiracy theories.
