Language: Powerful Tool of Manipulation

            In his article “Discourse and Manipulation,” published in the 2006 issue of Discourse & Society, Teun A. van Dijk describes language as an important tool for manipulation because the manipulator can make people think the way he wants them to: “Manipulation implies the exercise of a form of illegitimate influence by means of discourse: manipulators make others believe or do things that are in the interest of the manipulator, and against the best interests of the manipulated” (van Dijk 360). In other words, language is power. No one knows this better than O’Brien in George Orwell’s classic dystopian novel 1984. During his torture scenes with Winston, he explains how language is the very means by which the Party manipulates the public: “Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing” (Orwell 220). This is the ultimate example of the ruling Party’s all-encompassing power, built largely on their ability to control the minds of the populace by manipulating language. They achieve this manipulation through the use of propaganda, Newspeak and media. In our own society language is used to manipulate citizens as well, in more subtle, yet no less alarming ways, through the use of advertising, media and politics. Could we be headed toward a totalitarian society such as that presented in 1984?

            One of the primary ways the Party controls its populace in 1984 is through propaganda. The most obvious example of this comes in the form of the Big Brother posters that are plastered everywhere throughout the city. “…the poster with the enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran” (Orwell 5). This use of propaganda is particularly effective in controlling citizens because of its tie-in with discipline. Every citizen is reminded when they look at those posters that if they step out of line, they will be removed from society. This concept is discussed in detail in Michel Foucault’s Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison, where he introduces Panopticism, an idea which says that to control a large number of people, you need only give them the idea that they are under constant surveillance. “Whenever one is dealing with a multiplicity of individuals on whom a task or a particular form of behaviour must be imposed, the panoptic schema may be used” (Foucault 205). The Party also uses common products, such as gin and cigarettes, to remind its citizens of the war efforts by calling them vaguely “Victory Cigarettes” and “Victory Gin” (Orwell 8). The word victory is not only a constant reminder to the citizens of the war effort, but it also gives them hope that their side will one day win, thereby creating constant public support for the war. This is a particularly manipulative propaganda device because in reality the Party makes sure that the war is forever ongoing so as to prevent any kind of upset in the power structures. “…the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact” (Orwell 164). This then leads to the Party’s three slogans, which are plastered on the face of the Ministry of Truth: WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH (Orwell 26). These slogans are important in controlling the populace, as well, because they encourage doublethink, a word created by the Party to mean “to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them …” (Orwell 32). This is a manipulative device because it keeps the populace in a constant state of confusion and therefore prevents the formulation of any individual thoughts that would go against the Party. In other words, as O’Brien explains, it encourages solidarity: “’You know the Party slogan ‘Freedom is Slavery.’ Has it ever occurred to you that it is reversible? Slavery is freedom. Alone—free—the human being is always defeated’” (Orwell 218). 

Propaganda is used in our own society to manipulate the public primarily through the use of advertising. Advertisers use techniques of language manipulation to convince society to buy certain products or think in certain ways. In his article “Sell! Buy! Semiolinguistic Manipulation in Print Advertising,” published on the California State University – Northridge website, Alan C. Harris points to multiple print advertising campaigns as using words or phrases which manipulate public thinking. He sites the Brooks ad that reads “Roads Scholar,” Levis’ “Strokes of Jeanius” and Martini & Rossi’s “In a Glass by Itself” as examples of ways in which companies use double meanings to associate a product with a larger idea (Harris 6). “In a Glass by Itself” makes the product seem sophisticated and superior, thereby making the person who drinks it sophisticated and superior by association (Harris 6). Levis’ ad makes the brand seem like “genius” and the wearer, too, again making the buyer feel superior and like a “genius” (Harris 6). Finally, the Brooks ad implies that the person who wears these shoes will “become an expert in running the roads” (Harris 6). Additionally, the font size and boldness of text can subconsciously steer the viewer’s thinking, as well. Van Dijk points to this technique as an intentional means of manipulation: “… specific features of text and talk – such as its visual representation – may specifically affect the management of strategic understanding in short-term memory, so that readers pay more attention to some pieces of information than others” (Van Dijk 365). So, while we may not have reached the level of manipulation present in 1984, the use of language manipulation in our current-day advertising shows that we may be headed in that direction.

Another way that the Party manipulates language in 1984 is through the use of Newspeak, a system of language which eliminates any words, or secondary meanings of words, which might go against the Party’s teachings, words that might encourage free thought, individuality or thoughts of rebellion: “…to do anything that suggested a taste for solitude, even to go for a walk by yourself, was always slightly dangerous. There was a word for it in Newspeak: ownlife …” (Orwell 70). In his article “Turning to Orwell to Understand Orwell’s Problem: A Sociolinguistic View” published in the April 2006 issue of The Reading Matrix, Pedro Luis Luchini explains that the Party achieves this shortened vocabulary by stripping “all words of unorthodox and secondary meanings, so that each linguistic item would convey only one precise idea, and associations between concepts could only lead to Party-endorsed conclusions” (Luchini 101). But, more than just eliminating words of rebellion, the Party completely pares down their system of language to the bare minimum so that speaking is merely for information. Winston’s friend Syme, a Newspeak specialist, talks about this process: “We’re destroying words – scores of them, hundreds of them, every day. We’re cutting the language down to the bone” (Orwell 45). This is particularly disturbing because it prevents any kind of rich discourse from happening between people, which of course, is the Party’s intention. By reducing language to its bare form, the Party effectively breaks the bridge that links people together and prevents any discussion of a rebellious nature. Richard Rorty discusses the importance of language in his book Contingency, Irony and Solidarity: “There is nothing to people except what has been socialized into them – their ability to use language, and thereby to exchange beliefs and desires with other people” (Rorty 177). Therefore, by limiting the language of its citizens, the Party has established the ultimate means of control: They have eliminated the ability for humans to connect or interact.

            Today’s government has not reached the level of language manipulation of 1984's Newspeak, but politicians frequently manipulate public opinion through the use of loaded language, making it seem as though we could potentially be headed for a totalitarian world like that depicted in 1984. In 1996, for example, Newt Gingrich sent out a memo to the GOPAC, a Republican political action committee, entitled “Language: A Key Mechanism for Control.” In it, Gingrich lists what he calls “Optimistic Positive Governing Words” (Information Clearing House 1) and encourages politicians to use them to “give extra power to your message” (Information Clearing House 1). Words such as legacy, duty, crusade, humane and vision are examples (Information Clearing House 1-2). President George W. Bush takes this type of manipulation one step further, using language to establish a “Good” versus “Evil” mentality when speaking about terrorists. In his article “Bush’s Religious Language,” published in the December 4, 2003 edition of The Nation, Juan Stam refers to this concept as “manicheism” and points to a statement President Bush made the day after the 9/11 attacks, which illustrates this manipulative tool: “’This will be a monumental struggle of good versus evil, but good will prevail’” (Stam 1). This is particularly manipulative because it hides the downsides and points up the upsides of the person speaking. It also plays on people’s emotions surrounding an atrocity like 9/11 and uses that to instill both fear and hate in the public. Van Dijk discusses how the public’s emotional ties to the event make them more open to manipulation. “… a very emotional event with a strong impact on people’s mental models is being used in order to influence these mental models as desired – for instance in terms of a strong polarization between Us (good, innocent) and Them (evil, guilty)” (Van Dijk 170). By setting up this image in the public’s mind, President Bush can then manipulate the public into supporting war efforts to rid the nation of “evil” threats. A year later, Stam points out, when gearing up for war in his 2003 State of the Union address, Bush uses not only the word “evil,” but also words with religious overtones, such as “calling” and “blessed”: “the nation must go forth to ‘confound the designs of evil men,’ because ‘our calling, as a blessed country, is to make the world better’” (Stam 1). These words, in turn, manipulate the public into thinking that his call for war is both a means of protecting the country and a divinely inspired mission. So, once again, though we have not reached the totalitarian control of the Party in 1984, our current-day politicians do use language to manipulate the public, indicating that we may be headed in that direction. 

            The media is another means through which language is manipulated in 1984. The Party is continually changing what is printed in newspapers, and not just newspapers, but all forms of language distribution that might spark any kind of free thought in its citizens: “This process of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound tracks, cartoons, photographs—to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or ideological significance” (Orwell 36). This then, prevents citizens from having any reason to rebel against the Party. An additional way that the Party uses the media to manipulate its citizens is by altering the political speeches that Big Brother gives to correct any wrong information he might have spoken: “It was therefore necessary to rewrite a paragraph of Big Brother’s speech in such a way as to make him predict the thing that had actually happened” (Orwell 35). By manipulating Big Brother’s speeches in this way, it makes it look as though he is always right and sets up an image of perfection in the public’s minds. Why would they rebel against a perfect leader? Luchini says this strategy is of particular significance because it “forces people to want to comply with the rules” (Luchini 103), as opposed to the citizens under dictators like Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini who hated their leaders and hated having to follow their rules, and therefore were always looking for ways to overthrow them (Luchini 103).
            Today’s journalists do not go that far, of course, but they do determine how stories are presented and what language to use when writing about current events. For example, when U.S. military troops participate in activities that could be called terrorist in nature, journalists do not use the word “terrorism” in their reports. Van Dijk talks about this way of presenting a more appealing side to military actions: “… ‘our’ forms of political violence, such as military intervention or the actions of the police, are spoken and written about in such a way that they do not give rise to mental models that can be generalized as terrorist attacks, but as legitimate forms of (armed) resistance or punishment” (Van Dijk 371). An additional means of language manipulation is to soften language to make negative events seem more positive. This is often achieved through the use of known euphemisms, particularly about military actions, which are commonly used nationwide in newspaper and magazine articles and therefore become everyday terms. In his article “Politics, Advertising and Excuses: Why Do We Lie?” published in the July 2004 issue of ETC, Robert Ian Scott sites a Newsweek article from May 6, 1968 entitled “New Peak for Newspeak,” which talks about how euphemisms are used, particularly in reference to military actions, to soften language. The article cites “effective ordinance delivery,” which is really a cover for “bombs demolish a target,” and “collateral damage” in place of “killing helpless civilians” (Scott 194) as primary examples. By using euphemisms like these, the public gets a much less violent image of the war efforts and may be less likely to protest against it. Luckily, we have not reached the level of language manipulation used by the media in 1984, but current-day journalists clearly do use manipulative language at times.

            So, while we may not be in a totalitarian society like the one depicted in 1984, the ways in which advertisers, politicians and journalists manipulate language in order to control the thoughts of the populace in current-day society indicate that we could be headed in that direction. Our advertisers use language to manipulate us into buying their products, President Bush manipulates us into supporting the war by calling the terrorists "evil" and using evangelical wording to convince us he is our messiah, and our journalists soften the language they use to describe harsh military actions as a way to make the war seem less violent. While it's true that these ways of manipulating the public are not nearly as controlling as those used by the Party in 1984, they do have many disturbing similarities. Will we one day be living in a totalitarian society like that depicted in 1984?

* NOTE: Annotated bibliography for all essays is at the bottom of the home page.