One of the key ideas in 1984 is that who controls language controls thought (this relates to the whole business about controling past to contol the future). Language is a complicated issue, but it's basically the only way that we can "think" (some artist would argue with this, but in my experience it is generally true --- try to sit down for a half hour without a word going through your mind.) Some words have a clear one.on.one meaning ... most of us know what "pen" means. Many of the really important words are not that simple; there is no one.to.one correspondence with words such as "love," "freedom," "faith", etc. We do our best with the tools we have, but we can never agree on the exact meaning of these.
In 1984, the Inner Party realizes that if they can control the number and/or quality of words in the language (each new edition of the Dictionary gets smaller and smaller), then the people will not have the words/ thoughts that will allow them to think about/against the government. Take away the language, you may eventually be able to take away the thought of revolt. Control then becomes a very simple issue.
Maybe this is the reason English teachers are so insistant on wide reading and vocabulary development :)
No comments:
Post a Comment