Double Talk

2 Pages 461 Words

William D. Lutz’s article on “Language, Appearance, and Reality: Doublespeak in 1984,” is about the disguising of words to make sentences “more appropriate.” What I mean here by “more appropriate,” is the notion that people can say something using misleading words to get the real message across, without the listener or reader realizing it. Doublespeak in my point of view is like a magician doing a trick, for example he does his trick without the audience knowing how he does it. Same concept with a person using doublespeak, he gets his message across without his audience realizing what the true meaning behind his words.
Lutz argues that doublespeak is “Insidious because it can infect and ultimately destroy the function of language, which is communication between people and social groups.” Thus goes on to say, “Doublespeak is the product of clear thinking and is language carefully designed and constructed to appear to communicate when in fact it does not.” Lutz describes at least four kinds of doublespeak: euphemism, jargon, gobbledygook, and inflated. Euphemism is a word or phrase that is used to avoid a “harsh or distasteful reality.” For example, “I am sorry your father has passed away,” instead of, “I am sorry your father is dead.” Euphemism is used to protect one’s feelings of another person, and to communicate concern over the grieving person. When euphemism is used to mislead or deceive, it has now become doublespeak. For instance, the government does not use “killing” anymore, but “arbitrary deprivation of life.”
Jargon is a specialized language of a certain profession. For example, doctors, lawyers, mechanics, etc… all have a kind of code talk. Codes like jargon is used to communicate clearly, quickly, and efficiently. When a member of a certain profession uses jargon to communicate with a person of the outside group and knows that the person does not understand su...