I've been hearing a lot of talk about how George Orwell was only off by 20 years or so about his predictons in the novel 1984. Part of this is due to Bush's wiretapping being compared with the all seeing eyes of Big Brother and the Thought Police.
I love the novel 1984 and I was thinking this morning about chatroom jargon and such when I thought "It's simplified, but so simplified meaning can be lost." and of course that lead me to Orwell.
Do you think chatspeak is comparable to Newspeak? In what ways? I'd love to hear your opinions. I'd also like to hear what you think about "Orwell being off by 20 years." Thank you.
2006-07-23 05:14:01 · 6 answers · asked by Steph 4 in Arts & Humanities ➔ Books & Authors
No. Newspeak was used by the government to disguise the lies it was telling, or to put a positive spin on a bad thing. think calling a piece of legislation a "Patriot Act" when what the act does is remove the civil rights that supposedly make its country great. Hitler's government did this non-stop, but so did the west - the korean war was never officially a war, but a "police action". Chatspeak is about economy, not dishonest use of euphemism.
And, like someone already said, 1984 wasnt a prediction of the future, it was a discussion of what was happening, or could soon happen, in 1948, albeit in exaggerated terms. It was probably given a futuristic setting and an exaggerated nature to avoid the trouble Orwell had publishing "Animal Farm", where it was a lot easier to tell who was being criticised. The things Orwell describes in 1984 are happening now and have been happening since the book was published. If you disagree, then you're probably just not as cynical and pessimistic as Orwell was. (I mean that in a good way, I love Orwell).
2006-07-23 16:47:37 · answer #1 · answered by dave_eee 3 · 4⤊ 0⤋
I love Orwell's "!984!" In fact, I think I'm due to re-read it. I do see a resemblance between chatspeak and newspeak, but newspeak probably actually makes more sense, LOL! As far as Orwell only being off by 20 years, I kind of have to disagree. I know Bush has done some wire tapping, but I don't think it has affected the majority of the country. I don't think the government really cares what I'm up to - I'm a pretty boring person!
This is a great question. Maybe the country will move more in that direction, but I think it will be awhile yet.
2006-07-23 12:21:19 · answer #2 · answered by Rachel M 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I never really thought of it like that, but I think it kind of is like Newspeak. In a way, we are also reducing our vocabulary by using simplified words and letters instead of conveying the different words that may express ourselves in a better or more creative way. I personally try to avoid the chatspeak because I don't want to see the English language completely destroyed by people being lazy.
I think I would freak out if someone started saying "doubleplusgood" to describe their day.
2006-07-23 12:22:46 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
There isn't enough diplomacy-of-language online to make chatspeak very much like Newspeak. The goal of Newspeak was to be misleading. People online are simply too lazy to use good grammar, spelling, caps, punctuation, or even make sense most of the time. What's misleading about chatspeak is simply the volume of lies told.
2006-07-23 16:45:12 · answer #4 · answered by Candidus 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I don't think the two are related in any way.
From my perspective, chat speak is part laziness, and part urgency to complete a thought while it's still relevant to the conversation.
Newspeak is the manipulation of language to obscure what is being said, or to make something more socially acceptable. A good example is calling government spending an "investment."
It may interest you to know that many scholars agree that "1984" was really about Great Britain on 1948. The author was making a political point, in a socially acceptable way...
2006-07-23 12:20:20 · answer #5 · answered by Jay S 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I wouldn't compare Newspeak to chatrooms as much as I would compare it to the evening news and other "news" programs. Seems like modern news reports are simplified to a bunch of headlines with no exploration of what really happened.
The vocabulary of the general population is becoming scarily elementary. You can see it here in Yahoo Answers as well as in other chat rooms. Even worse than the elementary vocabulary is the overt use of bad grammar.
Can't blame all this degradation of verbal skills to the newscasts, which may actually be the result of, not the cause of, modern society.
2006-07-23 13:48:49 · answer #6 · answered by bikerchickjill 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋