Newspeak – det totalitära språket

Abstract

After the Second World War, several books came out about the life in dictatorships. In 1947, Nazi survivor Victor Klemperer published LTI, Lingua Tertii Imperii, about the particular language used in The Third Reich. Klemperer, who was philologist and a Jew, describes how the Nazi rhetoric gradually came to dominate the German society and LTI is based on his diaries which was written in secrecy from the Nazi regime. The book was first published in German and later in other languages.

George Orwells classical novel 1984 was published in 1949, two years after Klemperer`s LTI first came out. Many concepts from 1984 has become iconic symbols for the life in a totalitarian state. Some examples of these concepts are Big Brother and the term Newspeak, the latter being name of the language which is used in the state of Oceania, in which the main character Winston lives.

The aim of my thesis has been to compare LTI and 1984 from a language perspective focusing on the use of political language within the concept of totalitarian language. I have looked for similarities and differences in the texts. I have also explored dominant theories about totalitarianism and totalitarian language with the help of the works of Hannah Arendts The origins of Totalitarianism from 1951 and John Wesley Youngs work Totalitarian Language.

Keywords: Totalitarianism, George Orwell, 1984, Victor Klemperer, LTI, Totalitarian language