Language and Social Media in The Novel 1984 by George Orwell

The decomposition of language is something that has become heavily influenced by social media and the necessity of speed instead properly describing the feelings one is exhibiting. George Orwell already predicted this trend, not through causes but in the idea itself that words will devolve into its most basic form as society increases and alternatively as a way to keep humanity docile. Whether it be through pushing text speak on the youth, while a creation of their own, adults themselves have encouraged it by trying to keep in direct contact with their children, or the limited vocabulary that people have if one cannot articulate their thoughts on a matter they cannot properly protest or speak out against injustices. While a person’s vernacular is not the reason that society takes a downturn, but the other underlying factors contribute to the idea of language being powerful. 1984 represents “The Party” and the elite as a whole, as flashy, smart and intelligent. These people know how to keep a country interested, unworried, or even bored if those people so wished with the words given.
“Who controls the past,” ran the Party slogan, “controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.” And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered” (Orwell 35)
They have the power to rewrite history as they wish it. Language is used as a way to control the population in Oceania where 1984 is set, and is perpetuated and aided by the technological tools that monitor the populace. Society today is similar The parallels drawn between Orwell’s dystopian new world order style of society unfortunately begins to mirror our own, even though the novel was meant to only be a possible prediction on how governing bodies coul...

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...milarities, while prevalent are nowhere near the scale that Orwell imagined, but we are getting there. With each tweet, and shared image, there is no sweet poetic justice, nothing to elaborate on the feelings of a tarnished person, simply 140 characters, that is all Big Brothers would want you to have.

Work Cited
Orwell, George. 1984. New York: Signet Classics, 1977
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SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on 1984, Technology & Language.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2007. Web. 30 Apr. 2014.
Resch, Robert. Utopia, Dystopia, and the Middle Class In George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. Duke University Press. central.wmrhsd.org. Web. 7 May. 2014
Keils, R.M. Pentagon English is a Sort of Newspeak Vol. 24, No. 5. College Composition and Communication. National Council of Teachers of English. 1973.