The document summarizes George Orwell's novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four" and discusses the purpose of Newspeak, the official language of the dystopian society Oceania. Newspeak aims to limit freedom of thought and speech by reducing vocabulary over time. Its goal is to make dissenting ideas impossible to express, thus bolstering the totalitarian regime's control over citizens. The summary also briefly outlines some scholars' analyses of how restricting language restricts independent thought and resistance to authoritarian rule.

1. Paper N/o., Subject Code, Name :
107 : 22400 : The Twentieth Century
Literature : From World War II to the
End of the Century
Topic : ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’Novel by
George Orwell : Purpose of Newspeak
Prepared By : Nirav Amreliya
Batch : 2021-2023 (M.A. Sem. 2)
Enrollment Number : 4069206420210002
Ro. N/o. : 18
Submitted To : Smt. S. B. Gardi Department of English,
Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University,
Vidhyanagar, Bhavnagar – 364001
(Dated On : 12th April, 2022)

2.  Nineteen Eighty-four, also published as 1984, novel by English author George Orwell published in
1949 as a warning against totalitarianism. The chilling dystopia made a deep impression on readers,
and his ideas entered mainstream culture in a way achieved by very few books. The book’s title and
many of its concepts, such as Big Brother and the Thought Police, are instantly recognized and
understood, often as bywords for modern social and political abuses.
1984
 Upon the publication of Nineteen Eighty-Four, Aldous Huxley, creator of another famous dystopia, wrote
to Orwell saying, “The nightmare of Nineteen Eighty-Four is destined to modulate into the nightmare of
a world having more resemblances to that which I imagined in Brave New World.”
 Alan Brown cautioned that Orwell’s kind of moral writing leads to a
false feeling of objectivity : “The binding together of morality and
objectivity works to erase our sense of point of view in reading Orwell.
. . . Statements attributed to the author take on an oracular and
incontestable value.”

3. ~: Newspeak Dictionary :~
 The very first reference we find in the novel ‘1984’ of Newspeak dictionary occurs in the first chapter :
“The Ministry of Truth—Minitrue, in Newspeak [Newspeak was the official language of Oceania. For
an account of its structure and etymology see Appendix.]—was startlingly different from any other
object in sight.”
 Second significant reference comes in the third chapter : “All that was needed was an unending series
of victories over your own memory. ‘Reality control’, they called it: in Newspeak, ‘doublethink’.”
 In the fifth chapter, the mention of Syme is found : “Syme was a philologist, a specialist in Newspeak.
Indeed, he was one of the enormous team of experts now engaged in compiling the Eleventh Edition
of the Newspeak Dictionary.”
 In the same aforementioned chapter, an interesting dialogues occurs between Winston and Syme
regarding Newspeak dictionary : “‘It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Of course the great
wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well.
It isn’t only the synonyms; there are also the antonyms. After all, what justification is there for a word
which is simply the opposite of some other word? A word contains its opposite in itself. Take ‘good’,
for instance. If you have a word like ‘good’, what need is there for a word like ‘bad’? ‘Ungood’ will do
just as well—better, because it’s an exact opposite, which the other is not. Or again, if you want a
stronger version of ‘good’, what sense is there in having a whole string of vague useless words like
‘excellent’ and ‘splendid’ and all the rest of them? ‘Plusgood’ covers the meaning, or ‘doubleplusgood’
if you want something stronger still…You don’t grasp the beauty of the destruction of words. Do you
know that Newspeak is the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year?’”

4. ~ : The Purpose of Newspeak Dictionary :~
 The main purpose of Newspeak Dictionary was to curtail the freedom of speech and
suppress the people of Ingsoc state who oppose the policies and propagandas ofThe Party
led by Big Brother. It is symbolic representation of the language which is limited proposed
by totalitarian government to the subjects in order to repress revolt. Language is the most
preferred means to express the thoughts and ideas of individuals and that is why we have
poems, novels, and essays as the mode of communicate ideas; but reducing certain words –
especially those which are used for criticism – may secure the government and its
propagandas but for sure will dwindle down the free-speech of the subjects eventually
making them obey what the tyrants say and command.
 We can illustrate it by the point of view of Syme as he finds pleasure in destruction of
words, which is stark opposite to the liberal and flexible nature of any thriving language.
 Lang states that “Language, in other words, is a mirror of society and its
history,” arguing that if one can control the language, one can control
society.Thus, the control of language is ultimately the final step to a
perfected totalitarian power.

5.  Critical Review :
• Tom Shippey argues that Orwell’s appendix on Newspeak suggests that the relation between words and
their meaning are one-to-one correspondences.
• Berel Lang maintains, having a limited vocabulary will limit ones world view because if we lack the means
to formulate or think of an idea, it is likely that we also will accept the world for what it is, which in turn is
“quite exactly, what a totalitarian system desires and commands from its citizens.”
• Jean-Jacques Courtine, among others, argues that totalitarian regimes aim to keep people under
surveillance and control that is both visible and invisible.With Newspeak, this control is the unseen one
that is unconsciously establishing itself in the citizens of Oceania. His research argues that the limitations
in language will limit the room for the resistance of totalitarian regimes, stating “Power must thus become
master of language since language is the living memory of man and offers him a space for inner
resistance.”
• Steven Blakemore further expands on what the process of the reduction of a language looks like, and
argues these changes mean that the Inner Party will never stop working on ‘fixing’, or rather destroying,
the language, because the satisfaction of eliminating individual thought will never be fulfilled.

6.  Summing Up :
 Concluding the topic, we can safely say that by putting the concept of Newspeak dictionary,
Orwell has provided a new insight for looking into the minute things which construct the
totalitarian ruling government.The making of Newspeak dictionary is suggestive to the
forming up of limited and polite language which is deliberately made to lack the harsh and
critical words which can be used to criticize government and its propagandas as well policies
made to exploit the subject under the fine fabric of ‘Development.’ Language shapes
people’s minds, the way of thinking, forms the ideologies
and thus the concocted truths in place of the truth. Berel
Lang rightly states : “Language, in other words, is a mirror of
society and its history.”

7.  Resources :
 Lowne, Cathy. "Nineteen Eighty-four". Encyclopedia Britannica, 12 May. 2020,
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Nineteen-Eighty-four. Accessed 11 April 2022.
 Orwell, George. 1984, 2 June 2008, https://www.planetebook.com/free-ebooks/1984.pdf.
 Ottosson, Thomas. “FULLTEXT01.” The Viability of Orwell's Newspeak, 18 June 2020,
https://www.divaportal.org/smash/get/diva2:1443082/FULLTEXT01.pdf
 Saunders, Loraine. George Orwell's Critical Reception, 4 June 2012,
https://www.salempress.com/Media/SalemPress/samples/Orwell%20Sample.pdf.