Sumaya Mohamed
Politics and the English language by George Orwell
1- The most apparent literary device used in the Orwell’s thesis is allegory. The symbolic representation of modern English as being bad English because of the spread of bad habits and imitations.
2- George Orwell uses cause/effect method of development in his essay. He states the causes of what makes a bad writing and its effects on the language. He argues that the decline of a language has political and economic causes. For example, dictatorship in countries such as Russia and Germany caused their languages to be deteriorated.
3- “Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble”.
4- The main idea of paragraph #4: Modern English writing style is poorly expressed and unclear, as well as it lack precision and are mostly clichéd.
5- The main idea of paragraph #6: Modern prose lacks simplicity and is not concrete. The lesser syllables and words used, the more meaningful a work will be.
6- According to Orwell the purpose of a metaphor is to call up a visual image. In the essay Orwell refers to the phrase “The fascist octopus has sung its swan song” and believes that when the image of a metaphor clashes, the writer is not seeing the mental image of the object he is naming and concludes that he is not really thinking. In other words, this phrase does not convey a visual image to the reader.
7- Letting your mind open for ready-made phrases will construct your sentences for you but will result in concealing the meaning of what you are trying to say.
8- A speaker or writer who uses hackneyed phrases unconsciously such as “ stand shoulder to shoulder”, is described by Orwell as someone who is uttering the response in church. In addition, at this reduced state of unconsciousness, is at any rate favourable to political conformity.
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