George Orwell has made a fool of me. Admittedly, the style of writing I have come to take as my own appears within several of his examples. And yet, I’m not offended. After all, Orwell’s classic piece reminds us of the intimate connection between politics and writing.
While there are a few points of contention I have with Orwell with respect to the nature of language and its development, the article nevertheless emphasizes a dimension of language that is rarely discussed. That is, language as an instrument or that thing which can, if used properly, can be manipulated for the clarity of thought.
I particularly like Orwell’s image of ‘meaning choose the word.’ There is a sense that the authorial intent regains the primacy that it was robbed on at the close of 20th century. Despite these insights, Orwell comes off as sounding typically Anglo in his description of language. There is a darker side to understanding language as an instrument. He does, however, make the crucial distinction between language and literary language. In that case, I would be interested to hear what he has to say about the latter.
2 comments:
Wow, good deductions! I jokingly like the first. But really sounds like you connected to Orwell on a level that only a true master of literature could. Definably I think you hit it on the head in, "language as an instrument for the clarity of thought." That is the way and defining purpose I see for language!
Well Done!
I enjoyed that you used first person, and realyl brought out what you thought.
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