Lombrozo's Use Of Ambiguous Language

George Orwell, in an essay from Shooting an Elephant and Other Essays titled “Politics and the English Language” (1950), argues that the English language, through a cyclical process of sloven language and foolish thought, has become “ugly and inaccurate.” He supports his argument by using expert opinion, metaphors, and historical context. Orwell’s purpose is to demonstrate the debasement of the English language in order to prompt writers to make a conscious change in their writing . He adopts an informal tone (“Look back throughout this essay, and for certain you will find that I have again and again committed the very faults I am protesting against”) for writers in a time of political turnover and rising superpowers.

Now I realise it seems a bit hypocritical of me to attack the media’s representation of a news event when I myself am a part of the hype-generating circus we call mass media. However, the voice of my wise, high-school English teacher echoes in my subconscious that we should always be critical of the texts we consume and conscious of the

In George Orwell’s essay, “Politics And The English Language” Orwell discusses how the English language is changing negatively. His purpose is to show how modern writers, especially in politics, has become bogged down with the poor use of language. Orwell does this by using examples, critiques, and inductive reasoning. The author also has a serious tone that shows what he is talking about is very important to him and should be to his audience.

“Newspeak was designed to. . .diminish the range of thought. . .by cutting the choice of words down to a minimum” explains George Orwell, the author of a dystopian fiction novel, 1984 (Orwell 300). Orwell designs a society in which a totalitarian government rules, depriving people of their thoughts. The story gives us a look into the life of the main character, Winston, who seems to face issues with reality control. Today, we will delve into the depths of this novel and explore Orwell’s views on the nature of language. In simple terms, Orwell suggests that language, if used in a certain way, has the ability to influence people and compel them to alter their thoughts. With this statement and supporting evidence, it can be concluded that the effective use of language can give individuals power to modify or reshape opinions that will allow for change in society.

Malcolm X once said “The media 's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that 's power. Because they control the minds of the masses.” The media reaches out to all places and affects everyone. It changes how we think and what we do. In the novel White Noise, Don Delillo uses Babette’s moral ambiguity, conveyed through her decisions and actions, to reveal the influence that media has on the internal conflict between one’s self interest and morality.

George Orwell, the writer of many highly regarded literary works, is extremely interested in the power of language, mainly how it is abused. By analyzing two of his works, 1984 and Politics and The English Language, it is clear that Orwell is using his writing to bring awareness to the dangers of the manipulation, misuse, and decline of language. In 1984 he demonstrates how language can be used to control thought and manipulate the past. This is proven throughout the novel by examining the language of Newspeak and how it is key to controlling the totalitarian state, and how using language to alter and manipulate history can shape reality. In his essay Politics and the English Language Orwell

Media coverage of news events can be disseminated to the general public in any number of different ways and media biases often “reflects certain organizational and/or professional preferences or values” (Bennett 2011, 173). In fact, Lundman (2003) points out “that journalists assess the newsworthiness of homicides occurrences using the relative frequency of particular types of murders and how well specific murder occurrences mesh with stereotypical race and gender typifications (357).” In addition, Johnson (2012) felt that the real job of media was to “create a message that…grabs public attention (62).” In other words, can the media grab the public’s attention and hold it?

Two particular types of figurative language known as similes and metaphor contribute to Orwell’s goal in creating the dark and grim atmosphere. By using similes and metaphors Orwell compares elements of the atmosphere to other dark or deep things creating the grim atmosphere used to depict the harm of totalitarian governments.

In The Simpsons episode Homer states, “Maybe TV is right, TV is always right.” (Lynch, J., 1994) This use of dialogue, accompanying a mid-shot of Homer looking downcast, shows how the media dominates society in the show, reflecting similarly to the real world, where the media can misrepresent truth,. The host of Rockbottom states, “We members of the press sometimes make mistakes…” (Lynch, J., 1994)

Hard, fact-based news is typically found in traditional printed press. Soft news, also called infotainment, is describes as “news with fewer hard facts of the kind newspapers generally report but with more emphasis on personal stories that engage (or shock) the public and often appeal to the emotions rather than the intellect” (id. 224). The way soft news can interfere with Americans’ access to news is that in soft news, the discussion is focused more on personal stories and less on policies, more sensationalized and less objective. Geer provides an example, saying “news about crime or natural disasters can fit the soft category when the focus is about the drama surrounding the event (such as loss of life or home) rather than a discussion about public policy that could reduce crime or perhaps provide quicker government response to disasters” (235). With this example, Geer also points out that soft news’ emphasis on emotion and not substance can impede on the actual amount of factual information that people receive. Soft news may provide less information and deprive people of the facts they

The English language shows a sense of beauty in its own right through its myriad of words that can be used to paint a picture in the mind of its user. Some concede that the language is declining as older words are replaced by newer slang and the media spreads such colloquialisms to its viewers. Even the writer Thomas Lounsbury claimed that “the English tongue is always in the condition approaching collapse” (Bauer and Trudgill 15). In reality, workers in the media reflect the changing language to keep up with the common speech of their readers and viewers. This is clearly evinced in the common practices of newspapers and television as they adapt their speech in order to fit that of their target audience.

Bennet (2015) , in his essay “Thinking literally: The Surprising Ways That Metaphors Shape Your World”, points out that “…metaphors are primarily thought of as tools for talking and writing—out of inspiration or out of laziness, we distill emotions and thoughts into the language of the tangible world.” , (p. 637) We “distill” these ideas in this way because our minds are not typically very good at explaining our inner thoughts without outward ide-as. Orwell agrees with Bennett in his essay “Politics and the English Language” when he says that “A newly invented metaphor assists thought by evoking a visual im-age …” (Orwell, 2015) and that “Probably it is better to put off using words as long as possible and get one’s

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

1.Throughout the essay, Orwell talks about many of the problems in English language and how they all contribute to its downfall. One reason for its decline is the use of dying metaphors. A dying metaphor is one that has no impact on the reader, it has no meaning, and doesn’t enhance the readers experience. Another reason is the use of verbal false limbs and pretentious diction, which are used to make single words or short phrases into unnecessarily long and complex phrases in an attempt to sound smarter or more sophisticated. They also use words that are from Greek and Latin language. By bringing in another language into our own, we begin to break away from our origin of the English language. Next, meaningless words are also a problem

The research for this article was conducted within a framework of Framing theory. The theory was first put forward by a Canadian-American sociologist Erving Goffman. Media framing, to put it bluntly, is a term that points to a presence of a certain bias in any media outlets’ output. All choices made in a newsroom collectively form the frame through which media decides to show the world to the audiences. Everything matters: Covering one event and ignoring another, covering one event more than the other, deciding what words to use to cover an event, what photographs or video clips to include, whom to give a voice, etc. At the same time, framing theory goes far beyond newsroom policies. Framing is not necessarily a delibirate choice. Journalists themselves look at the world through frames: their education, upbringing, gender, ethnical background, knowledge of the issue, and so on. Audience members apply their own frames as well, not just to media content, but to everything they hear and see.