The World Of Doublespeak By William Lutz

Each “hearer” also interprets what he hears as a beholder.  Consequently, if an English speaker, or writer desires to convey a message, truth, fiction or nonfiction, entertainment, persuasion, evidence of fact, he must use correct language, perhaps colloquialisms, be aware of the listeners, their education, culture, motivation and attention. The written and spoken language can be used to deceive as well as to inform.  Advertisement, celebrities, leading preachers, politicians are used to provide a single perspective, not thorough information leading to a reasoned conclusion.

One illustration of the manipulation of language today is seen in politics. Politicians speak in a certain manner that can affect the thought process of the listener. They carefully word their speech so that it delivers the correct message to the listener’s brain and creates a certain thought pattern that is ideal for the speaker. For instance, if an idea can be spoken two separate ways and have the same basic meaning, the politician will select a way that controls the way people think of your speech overall by using different wording. In 1984, word manipulation similar to this technique is used. The ministry branches, Ministry of Love, Ministry of Peace, Ministry of Plenty and Ministry of Truth, all had opposite meanings. For example, the ministry of Peace was really the Ministry of War and the Ministry of Love was really the Ministry of Law Enforcement and Punishment. This caused people to think that the Ministries were better than they really were and they forgot about the bad things they stood for.

Lutz begins the persuasive essay with a sarcastic tone. He distinguishes the use of doublespeak with quotation marks. He starts off each sentence without the use of doublespeak and ends with how doublespeak perceives the situation to be rather than the reality. Lutz states, “The Reagan Administration didn’t propose any new taxes, just “revenue enhancement” through new “user’s fees.” (Lutz line 1-3) He shows how “taxes” was changed to something different in order to mislead the public. William Lutz provided various examples to show that doublespeak can sugarcoat different situations. He then goes on to supply a definition of doublespeak through diction. William Lutz continues to classify doublespeak as a “language” and explains how it is used to mislead others. He states, “Doublespeak is language that avoids or shifts responsibility, language that is at variance with its real or purported meaning.” (Lutz line10-11) This shows that it is at a whole other level that has to be deciphered to be able to understand and also suggests that can be difficult to capture. Lutz also uses repetition to give the definition. He states, “It is the incongruity between the word and referent, between seem and be, between the essential function of language…” (Lutz line 15-16) This emphasizes the length of the effect doublespeak can have. Lutz begins to structure his essay into subsections to further explain doublespeak. The first subsection focuses on “How to Spot Doublespeak.” He

Many of the predictions made by George Orwell in his book 1984 in relation to corruption of language are recognizable in the United States today. Our language is in the process of changing. The introduction of politically correct words and phrases over the past few decades is based on the principles of Orwell's Newspeak. Today, this phenomenon is a tool of liberals used to erase the opinions of the past, and to help propagate new ideas, and is rooted in the same motives as Newspeak. Although Political Correctness may not be all-encompassing as its Orwell's Newspeak, Political Correctness is equally as dangerous and oppressive to free thought. For example, terms such as "Affirmative Action" implies Action which is correct ("Affirmative" means correct, and "Action" is normally good as well) when actually what is meant is the preferential treatment for a particular minority group. The word "Peacekeepers," now refers to a soldier that occupies a foreign nation. During the cold war, when the USSR would do that type of thing,

In Cross’s opinion, she believes people are bamboozled by propaganda because they fail to recognize when they experience it (248). The thirteen propaganda methods Cross describes in this essay include the following: Name-Calling, Glittering Generalities, Plain-Folks Appeal, Arguementum Ad Populum (Stroking),

He feels a deep sense of guilt and pain because of the condition of society

Within the essay, “But What Do You Mean?”, author Deborah Tannen explains several main areas of miscommunication between men and women. Within her article, she goes section-by-section comparing men and women’s preferred style of communication. She concludes that while men and women may communicate differently, neither are wrong. To address this concern, she suggests using language both parties can understand. On the other hand, in William Lutz article, “The World of Doublespeak,” he takes a different approach to language discrepancies. Lutz introduces the idea of doublespeak as inherently negative. He starts by proceeding to discuss types of doublespeak subcategory-by-subcategory. Within his subcategories, he gives various real-world examples from various aspects of communication. The conclusion Lutz resolves to claims that doublespeak impedes communication, and thus should be eliminated. Overall, despite both authors exploring aspects of language the tone, categorization, and conclusions are different.

“Doublespeak” can be seen frequently in the world of 1984. The party’s big slogan “WAR IS PEACE. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.” (George Orwell, 4) is an good example. The idea of the slogan is to convince the citizens that what they want, is what they already have. Only war can make peace and harmony, so peace is no longer peace, it becomes war; anyone who is slaved and wants freedom, he already has freedom; you can only strengthen yourself by not knowing things and being ignorant. The slogan changes truth and make the citizens believe that anything they want other than what their government wants can only make them unhappy, therefore, no one will consider rebellion because they believe the Party’s way of governing is the best and only way. “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU” (George Orwell, 3) is

Rhetoric is a course in which students are taught the values of persuasion. And yet, behind this course is the utmost power to corrupt the world, changing it into a world of our own policies. This power, even though seldom discussed, has lead to many intriguing discoveries. One such discovery is how people are able to shape the world they live in simply by choosing the right words. Therefore those who would want the world to be a better place must protect this power. If in the wrong hands this power could cause serious damage. Several authors have striven to protect rhetoric and its power. Few agree on the matter of defining rhetoric, but they know that they must protect rhetoric from dark souls. A single definition of rhetoric must maintain a simplistic nature while incorporating every aspect of rhetoric. However, I argue that rhetoric is a means of persuading audiences of a situation and a particular reality through language and personal appeal. In order to prove this definition I will discuss how rhetoric creates a situation, the shaping of a different reality, the audience, the use of language, and the personal appeal. Finally, I will demonstrate the absolute need for rhetoric.

The essay “Life under the Chief Doublespeak officer” by William Lutz talks about the way language deliberately obsures and diguises used to distort meaning. The author suggests in a argument that people amongst us in everyday life /uses this technique to creatviley manipulate whatever it’s original meaning is. After whatever is being translated to whomever by then its is undesirable to be communicated through plain language. He gives examples of firing employees as referring to just downsizing them and sacking off, which is a substitute that portrays the simple fact on one being fired in a gentle manner. Luts later concludes that the corporate sector, just like politicians, employs doublespeak to communicate problems and issues that has negative

The essay I decided to do a journal entry was “Life under the Chief Doublespeak Officer”. The purpose of this essay was to show how corporations use language to distract from the real effect of their decisions. Major corporations use this dialect to maintain an image that they want to portray of their company. This always appears to benefit the company more than the employs, shareholders, or whoever they want to deceive. It is honestly just a way to fluff a positive outlook through a negative situation. (Lutz, n.d.) In today’s day and age this doublespeak is used more often than ever. It seems to be a more politically correct way to put negative situations to avoid scrutiny.

In the essay “The World of Doublespeak”, by William Lutz, the author gives the reader four different questions to help one identify doublespeak. According to Lutz these questions are, “who is saying what to whom, under what conditions and circumstances, with what intent, and with what results?” (par. 4). These questions help to distinguish between truthful language and doublespeak. The first question, “who is saying what to whom?” focuses on the relationship between the two people. The chance of doublespeak being present increases greatly when the two people have a negative, or passive-aggressive, relationship. The next question, “under what conditions and circumstances?” focuses on the events of what is going on. This question shows up prominently in events such as political rallies and debates. The third question, “with what intent” focuses on the underlying goal of the statement. This question raises the most suspicion, as it makes one really think about whether there is doublespeak present. The final question “what results” ties in on the intent. The outcome of the doublespeak will be different that that of

Doublespeak is being defined as language that can be understood in more than one way and that is used to trick or deceive people. Doublespeak is a product of clear thinking. You have to be smart or simply know how to use this technique to acquire people’s attention and want them to buy a product. Doublespeak corrupt thought. Everyone must pay attention to what sale representatives are trying to sell to them, do not be afraid to say no because you do not understand something, it is all right to not understand something, it is the way of how we learn something new, keep eyes and ears wide and open all the

Doublespeak is, without a doubt, one of the most severe threats to language. Slang, texting, and improper grammar are readily accused of hijacking language when these actually follow the intent of language: to communicate. Communication is defined here as “the utilization of language to exchange information”. The irony is that while slang, texting and improper grammar may not appear as “pretty” as language should be, they all serve to communicate properly. Doublespeak intentionally utilizes language to exchange deceitful information, and does so while keeping up appearances of what we normally define as “pretty” or acceptable linguistically.

The purpose of this paper is to present the argument mapping of “The Logic of Nonstandard English,” by William Labov. To start off this understanding I will first define keywords in order for the reader to fully grasp the argument. Furthermore I will state the author's main claim and link them to the evidence Labov provides. In closing, I will show how these claims are linked together by giving my mapping of the interrelated parts, that as I understand, define the article’s overall structure. In the case here, I will be arguing that there are four strong ethnographic facts, one weak ethnographic fact, one general ethnographic explanation and one strong ethnographic observation. In this article, Labov is against the ‘deficit model’ used to