In his essay “The World of Doublespeak” Emeritus Professor William Lutz explained the concepts of doublespeak and the dangers involved in doublespeak. He outlined and explained in full details the four kinds of double doublespeak which includes: “Euphemism”, “Jargon”, “Gobbledygook” and “Inflated language”. Lutz explained that “Euphemism” are words that are used to avoid harsh and unpleasant reality. They are also used to make negative situations look positive and he gave an example of situations like death where we use positive terms to condole the family of the deceased. The next kind of doublespeak that he talked about was “Jargon” which is mostly used by professionals and is complex in nature because of the way professionals use it. He gave different examples one of which include: “Involuntary Conversion” of property. …show more content…
A term used to describe the loss of property.
The next kind of doublespeak that he talked about was “Gobbledygook” which is the pilling up of words and sentences for the purpose of overwhelming the audience. The last kind of doublespeak that he talked about was “Inflated Language” which is designed to make the ordinary seem extraordinary. Because of the overestimation that is involved it can have some serious consequences. He cited some examples about some military terms which puts Americans in the dark because not everybody understands the term as a result of “Inflated language. In his conclusion Lutz talked about the dangers of doublespeak. He noted that double is intentional and can eventually destroy the future of language. As someone who has been against misleading and irresponsible language, in his essay he used strong words against double
speak. Lutz been an Emeritus Professor at Rutgers University and receiving an award for distinguished contribution to honesty and clarity in public language has a very good credibility. He became popular when he started leading the campaign against misleading and irresponsible language. It is very remarkable that with the knowledge that he has about doublespeak he does not doublespeak unlike professionals who take advantage of people. He clearly explains what doublespeak is and what it does (par 3). His essay is an explanatory essay and he is directly speaking to students and educationists. The essay was written from his book “from Revenue Enhancement to terminal Living” and even though his essay is dated doublespeak still happens today in our daily live and operation. William Lutz wrote the his book 28 years ago but all what he wrote then is still true know, living in an advanced era has made doublespeak to be more common and people now use it to manipulate others. A lot of us doublespeak in our daily lives without knowing that we are doing most especially kids because doublespeak has become the best way to get ourselves out of trouble and problem Doublespeak is also present in our daily news cycle because a lot of them try to avoid some phrases by replacing it with inflated language. In general Lutz message is still present today and will remain forever.
1 Wilson Follett, in the article “On Usage, Purism, Pedantry” from Modern American Usage, promotes how two parties view the rights and wrongs concerning the usage of language.
In “Defending Against the Indefensible” by Neil Postman, he proposes a different way of viewing the English language. He says that our civilization is being manipulated by the ambiguity in English, and students are most easily affected by the school environment. Thus, he proposes seven key ideas that students should remember in order to avoid the dangers and loopholes that twist the original meaning of statements.
In the essay “From Ancient Greece to Iraq, the Power of Words in Wartime” by Robin Tolmach Lakoff, Lakoff discusses the fact that words are a tool as well when it comes to wars. She talks about the differences between our natural want and ability to kill things, and the mental training soldiers receive to make it easier for them. Lakoff talks about the practice of dehumanizing the “enemy” through nicknames that make us feel superior then our foes, and the repercussions of using this type of language. In the essay by George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language”, Orwell talks about the decay of the English language, especially in political writings. He discusses the fact that when it comes to writing, political being the main focus, it’s
In the modern society, millions of people realize that several offensive words with insulting taboo meanings heavily disturb their daily lives and break some special groups of people’s respect to push them to feel like outsiders of the whole society. As a result, more and more people join some underway movements to eliminate the use of these offensive words in people’s everyday speech and writing. However, these offensive words themselves are not the culprit, the bad meanings people attach are the problems and some other functions of the words are useful in the society. Christopher M. Fairman the author of “ Saying It Is Hurtful, Banning It Is Worse” also argues that although
This is not newspeak exactly as Orwell portrayed it (a open attempt at centralized modification of language), but more in the form of what Orwell warned about in his essay Language and Politics. The subtle debasing of words has allowed the powerful in democratic nations to successfully install a system which is blatantly counter-democratic in its behavior and yet is masked by twisted language.
There are many reasons why people use euphemism as mentioned by William Lutz in “The world of Doublespeak” states that “euphemism is an inoffensive or positive word or phrase used to avoid the harsh, unpleasant, or distasteful reality” (390). However as mentioned by Lutz in “The world of doublespeak” when a euphemism is used to mislead or deceive, it becomes doublespeak” (391). For example instead of saying we killed three people they would use the phrase we exterminated three intruders to mislead and confuse people especially the uneducated. Also as stated by William Lutz in “The World of Doublespeak” indicates that “when you use a euphemism because of your sensitivity for someone’s feelings or for a recognized social or cultural taboo, it is not doublespeak” (390). For instance, imagine someone told you I heard your grandpa died that would sound harsh, but if someone said I heard your grandpa passed away that sounds more respectable which is not considered doublespeak. Lutz finds the People who are responsible for euphemism doublespeak tend to be people that try to cover up the unpleasant, which are mainly the government, armies and the news. Next as stated by Lutz “it is a language designed to alter our perception of reality”
For example, using sarcasm †̃well thatâ€TMs just greatâ€TM most often used in a sarcastic tone but taken literally it would be interpreted as amazing. The language we use can be confusing we must adapt our verbal communication accordingly.
Irony says one thing on the paper but can have a totally different meaning. This doubled voice can often be thought of as “ either a defensive or an offensive rhetorical weapon” ( Hutcheon 332). Using this form of speech can be used to address certain issues but also protest against it. The greatest factor to Canadians doubleness is that English Canada shares a language with Britain and the United States. The idea of doubleness greatly affects Canadian politics. This language can be taken two different ways in terms of
The central idea in Newspeak is used in today’s society to limit ideas and prevent people from being different. Political Correctness demands that people adhere to its standards of ideology in order to be acceptable to a society of peers. Any idea that is different than societies value is crushed by people who share political views. Words and actions are abolished by citizens in order to gain the approval of the people around them.
George Orwell’s essay, Politics and the English Language, first published in 1946, talks about some “bad habits”, which have driven the English language in the wrong direction, that is, away from communicating ideas. In his essay he quotes five passages, each from a different author, which embody the faults he is talking about. He lists dying metaphors, operators, pretentious diction, and meaningless words as things to look out for in your own writing and the writing of others (593-595). He talks about political uses of the English language. Our language has become ugly and the ugliness impedes upon communication. Ugly uses of language have been reinforced and passed down in the population “even among people who should and do know better,” (598). Ugly language has been gaining ground in our population by a positive feedback mechanism.
This can narrow one’s thoughts and vocabulary, much like the Newspeak idea that George Orwell introduced in his book, 1984. Since there is Newspeak in our society today, it would make sense to have doublespeak implemented in our day to day lives, as
George Orwell, an English novelist, had once warned the world that our “language will certainly become muddled with sayings that have lost their meaning”. Doublespeak is a language that can be disguise and can reverse the meaning of words. This language can make negative effects seem like they are positive by changing how we see the meaning. It can be used to lie, or even mislead someone while trying to tell the truth about something. There are different types of Doublespeak and how they touch the world’s meanings to words.
Toma, C. L., & Hancock, J. T. (2012). What lies beneath: The linguistic traces of deception in
Pragmatics Aspects: Deixis and Distance, reference and inference, conversational implicature, anaphoric and cataphoric reference, presupposition, entailment, direct and indirect speech acts and speech events, cultural context and cross cultural pragmatics, conversational analysis and background knowledge, denotation and connotation meaning, the four maxims and hedges.
Her approach is capable of identifying and describing the underlying mechanisms that contribute to those disorders in discourse which are embedded in a particular context, at a specific moment, and inevitably affect communication. Wodak’s work on the discourse of anti-Semitism in 1990 led to the development of an approach she termed the Discourse-Historical Method. The term historical occupies a unique place in this approach. It denotes an attempt to systematically integrate all available background information in the analysis and interpretation of the many layers of a written or spoken text. As a result, the study of Wodak and her colleagues’ showed that the context of the discourse had a significant impact on the structure, function, and context of the utterances. This method is based on the belief that language “manifests social processes and interaction” and generates those processes as well (Wodak & Ludwig, 1999, p. 12). This method analyses language from a three-fold perspective: first, the assumption that discourse involves power and ideologies. “No interaction exists where power relations do not prevail and where values and norms do not have a relevant role” (p. 12). Secondly, “discourse … is always historical, that is, it is connected synchronically and diachronically with other communicative events which are happening at the same time or which have happened before” (p. 12). The third feature