Language and dystopia: the 'Newspeak' in George Orwell's «Nineteen Eighty-Four»

Abstract

In the dystopian world that George Orwell imagines in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, the hegemonic politic party Ingsoc promulgates the Newspeak, a language created in order to satisfy the ideological needs of the Party: to control the individual and prevent the exercise of his free thought. Imaginary languages ​​have always played an important role within the dystopian genre: the structure of society is reflected in that of language, the intimate relationship between representation of reality language is exploited for political ends. The article investigates - through the perspective of linguistic relativism - the functioning of the relationship between linguistic sign and referent in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. The study uses in particular the concepts of denotation and connotation and relates them to the iconic surface of words theorized by Berman.

Keywords

• george orwell
• newspeak
• linguistic relativity
• antoine berman
• iconic surface