Lecture- George Orwell

In this lecture we looked at George Orwell we also looked at the book Tractatus Logico- Philosophicus by Wittgenstein, this book tells us about the verification principle. This principle is based upon whether you can verify your statements, it basically means that without having proof of your statement being true than it has no meaning to it. Also known as the falsification prinicple, no statement will mean a thing unless it is proven to be true. Much like the very principle itself cannot be proven so must make no sense, this is why Wittgenstein said his first book was nonsense.

He then goes on to look at language, language he states is the basis for everything without language there can be no ideas, this means that the source of every idea is language. With this thought in his head he then goes on to explain that you can paint whatever picture you want with language and it becomes exactly what the language is. Orwell then continuing on from this idea he argues that language are facts so if you are able to control language you can indeed control fact which means you can manipulate the world to be whatever you want it to be. This idea has influenced things even today with 'Big Brother', 'Room101', a term used even today in journalism is the 'orwellian', to try and baffle the reader by muddling the language to create facts that aren't really there. Orwell was also close to a lot of communist leaders, however he himself was against this, he even stopped being freinds after he found out about lies they were telling, 'The God that Failed' being an example. The USSR banned paricular words from being said, with the thought that without the words the idea doesn't exist, this appalled Orwell. Orwell also wrote a book on the Russin Revolution 'Animal Farm' which still today is a big hit amongst the masses.

We were told about how language can be used to confuse and manipulate people the 'Orwellian language' he gave us the sentence, "The school aims to be at the leading edge of interprofesional education, practise and research for health, social care and complimentary therepies". This is a prime example of language being used to manipulate peoples thoughts. With its use of what looks like 'intelligient' words at first it basically tries to undermine people so they think that they are the stupid ones, even though this sentence makes no relevant sense at all. This is a lot of nonsense that doesn't mean a thing but is controlled in a way to look as though it does.

Orwell gave people the advice that you should never use a big word when a smaller one will do so to not confuse your audience. Stay clear from metaphors and similies, they are not needed and don't really make much sense. Cut words out where possible, words that are not needed are meaningless. Never use passive uses of language when you can use active, engage with your reader directly. Never use a scientific, foreign word or jargon when you can think of an English equivalent, you want the majority to understand your writing theres no point in confusing them if you want to make sense.