"Cracking the weasel code of politicians"- Newspeak as a form of political language manipulation

Extract

[...] As mentioned before, persuasiveness has gained an importance as politicians endeavor to be noticed, not understood. Hence newspeak could be tightly wedded to political style as political eminence has been markedly re-worked to establish itself in a broader context. Corner and Pels (2003) postulate that: “Political style increasingly operates as a focus for post-ideological lifestyle choices, which are indifferent to the entrenched oppositions between traditional ‘isms' and their institutionalism in the form of political parties ( ) and which favor more eclectic, fluid, issue-specific and personality-bound forms of political recognition and engagement.” (Corner and Pels 2003: Indeed it appears that the kind of language politicians adopt may decide about their political future and work as a test of their uprightness and worth. [...]

[...] He explicitly stated that “Newspeak is the modern version of the English tongue ordained by the Party. It has given to the world such remarkable words as doublethink, thoughtcrime, plusgood, and sexrime (‘love' in to-day's English). (Orwell 1946:3) Orwell explored the postulation that the type of language we employ to represent something can alter the way in which it is perceived. In consequence, controlling communication equals controlling the way people think (Jones and Peccei 2005). Newspeak can be treated as discourse transmitted by means of manipulative language structures to all areas of our lives. [...]

[...] Andrzej Markowski defined in Polityka (no 27/ 2007) as a word whose meaning was shifted to stand for: “według kierownictwa rządzącej partii grupa ludzi sprawujących władzę w III RP, mająca do dziś kontrolę nad newralgicznymi dziedzinami życia w Polsce, składająca się z polityków mających od dawna powiązania z ludźmi należącymi w przeszłości do elit władzy PRL i komunistycznymi służbami specjalnymi, a dziś powiązana licznymi interesami z ludźmi biznesu oraz przedstawicielami świata przestępczego, usiłuje uniemożliwić przemiany w Polsce i zatrzymać budowę IV RP.” The word “układ” gained prominence also in the foreign press. The Times recurrently referred to it as the idea conceived by Kaczynskis, which signifies the corrupt politicians, businessmen and communist sympathizers who run Poland according to the Law and Justice Party. (e.g. 11th September 2007). Needless to say, the Polityka survey evoked a large wave of reactions from all sides. [...]

[...] As Sławek (2007) notes, comparative and superlative adjective forms are also exercised for portraying Polish political scene and its members with the goal to expose what is controversial and reprehensible: Najbardziej kontrowersyjny, najzagorzalszy przeciwnik, najgroźniejszy konkurent This is where we have reached the point of correspondence between political discourse and its variant- newspeak. As Bralczyk (2000) proves, valuation is arguably one of the most significant features of newspeak in Poland and shall be examined more meticulously in view of the Polish political language. [...]

[...] However, when combined with empty words, they may indeed become manipulative. Poerkson provided a list of plastic words, which is, however, neither stable nor fixed: Basic need, care, center, communication, consumption, contact, decision, development, education, energy, exchange, factor, function, future, growth, identity, information, living standard, management, model, modernization, partner, planning, problem, process, production, progress, project, raw material, relationship, resource, role, service, sexuality, solution, strategy, structure, substance, system, trend, value, welfare, work. Despite their small number, plastic words are able to build countless models of reality. [...]