George Orwell's Theory of Language

About the Book

There is not a single book that gives a systematic description of George Orwell’s views on language. Andrei Reznikov’s work is the first attempt to fill this gap. Reznikov puts together the pieces of Orwell’s language puzzle, scattered throughout his essays, diaries, letters, radio talks and fiction, and proposes the Newspeak model as Orwell’s way to formulate his theory. The theory is then tested with illustrative examples from three languages—modern English, Nazi German, and Soviet Russian. Finally, the author describes bias-free language as an implementation of Orwell’s ideas.

About the Author

Andrei Reznikov is a Professor of English at Karelian State Pedagogical University (Petrozavodsk, Russia). In 2000-2001 he was a Visiting Fulbright Scholar in the English Department of the University of Vermont, where he researched George Orwell’s theory of language.