Научная работа от Лукмановой Н. В.

Исследовательская работа

«SIMILAR AND DISTINCTIVE FEATURES OF NEWSPEAK IN G.ORWELL'S NOVEL '1984' AND NETSPEAK»

Лукманова Наиля Вахитовна,

учитель английского языка

Высшей квалификационной категории

МАОУ "Гимназия №139 - Центр образования"

Приволжского района города Казани

Казань - 2019

Contents

Introduction ..............................................................................................................2

Chapter I. Theory.......................................................................................................5

1.1.Netspeak..............................................................................................................5

 1.1.1. Definition of Netspeak....................................................................................5

 1.1.2. History of Netspeak........................................................................................5

 1.1.3. Vocabulary of Netspeak.................................................................................6

     1.1.3.1. Abbreviations and acronyms...................................................................6

     1.1.3.2. Emoticons................................................................................................7

1.2. Newspeak............................................................................................................7

Chapter II. Comparison of Newspeak and Netspeak.................................................9

2.1. Criteria of comparison...........................................……................................9

2.1.1.The goal of creation................................................................................9

          2.1.2. The first appearance.............................................................................10

          2.1.3. The spreading of the language and people using it.............................10

          2.1.4. Requirements of special skills to use...................................................11

          2.1.5. Grammatical and lexical peculiarities.................................................11

          2.1.6. Influence on culture and people's consciousness................................16

Conclusion…………………………………………………………...……………18

Literature.................................................................................................................20

Appendix 1..............................................................................................................21

Introduction

          Without any doubts, every language is constantly changing with the development of the society evolving and adapting to speakers’ needs. In the XX century many languages underwent significant changes. Russian language was simplified in 1918 with the spelling reform (for example, four obsolete letters such as ѣ, і, ѵ, and ѳ and the archaic usage of the letter ъ (called yer, or hard sign) at the ends of words were eliminated) and in 1964 with the orthography reform (for instance, all particles are written separately now). Since 1950s and 1960s the government of the People's Republic of China has promoted simplified Chinese characters prescribed in the List of Commonly Used Characters in Modern Chinese (Xiandai Hanyu Tongyong Zibiao) for use in printing in order to increase literacy. In 1990 the French spelling reforms were held (as an illustration, numbers now are written with hyphens instead of spaces, to avoid ambiguity: 'trois-cent-trente-deux-mille-cinq-cent-un' instead of 'trois cent trente-deux mille cinq cent un'). In 1996 the German orthography reform (Rechtschreibreform) was put into action to make German orthography easier to learn (to demonstrate, a short stressed vowel is followed by 'ss' instead of "ß" nowadays). English language was not an exception. In 1906 The Simplified Spelling Board was founded in the USA, then it published a list of 300 words commonly used in American English and also Handbook of Simplified Spelling (for instance, words 'though', 'through', 'island' after the reform looked like 'tho', 'thru', 'iland'). The process of development never stops. Nowadays we live in a world of information technologies. Mass media and the Internet have a great influence on our lives and, particularly, the language we speak. Actually, the majority of social networks' users tend to reduce and modify words in order to ease and fasten the process of communication. As a result, so-called Netspeak came into being.

          However, in the previous century it was rather popular to create new languages. J.R.R.Tolkien's characters in his novel 'The Lord of the Rings' speak such fictional languages as Westron (or the Common Speech), Elvish languages (Sindarin, Quenya), Rohirric, Valarin, Black Speech and others. J.K.Rowling in 'Harry Potter' created words working as spells that are an essential part of magicians' life. G.R.R.Martin in his 'A Game of Thrones' created the Valyrian languages and the Dothraki language. These writers brought new languages into existence in an attempt to show the magical world with unknown creatures. British writer George Orwell in his novel '1984' created Newspeak supposed to supersede Oldspeak (or Standard English). G. Orwell was convinced that there is a strong bond between the social development and the language. Novelist was concerned about the possibility of establishment of totalitarian political system in England. Newspeak became one of the means of absolute political control in the novel, as it helped to make politically undesirable thoughts impossible to express.

It is undeniable that the structure of the language has a significant influence on people's consciousness. Nowadays many people worry about popularity of  Internet slang, as its excessive simplicity and universalism can lead to recession of literacy and degradation in whole, what is more, standardized way of communication can make all Internet users identical and, therefore, easy to control (by the government or people who have power and whom mass media and the Internet belong to).                                                                Netspeak can even substitute usual English language. A new study made by researcher Amanda Lenhart at the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that that two-thirds of U.S. teenagers use Internet writing shortcuts in their written schoolwork. Some Netspeak's words are included in official dictionaries. It testifies that this problem is really actual.

          Fictional Newspeak and Netspeak appeared with an approximate thirty-year difference (the novel was published in 1949), moreover, these two languages have resemblances and it seems to us that in future there is an opportunity that Netspeak can become Newspeak put into real life and it can be followed by catastrophic consequences.

          The aim of our study is to explore if modern English language is turning into Newspeak and to what degree these languages are becoming the same things. To reach this aim we worked out the following problems:

-to analyze the difference between Newspeak and Oldspeak in '1984'

-to understand the structure and vocabulary of Netspeak

-to compare Newspeak and Netspeak and point out similarities and differences

-to analyze the results obtained and determine the percent of resemblance between these languages

          The object of our research is definitely language in its different variations and the evolution of the language under the influence of the development of the society.

          The clear subject of our study is pointing out similarities and differences of Newspeak in G. Orwell’s novel ‘1984’ and Netspeak.

         In this research such methods as linguistic analyses, comparative analyses and contrastive analyses were used.

          The theoretical significance of our research is expressed in figuring out the interaction of changes within the language and the development of the society.

          The practical significance of our study is that our research can be used at schools, other educational institutions and even in mass media in order to raise people's awareness of changes in modern English language. We hope that it will help to prevent English language and culture from eliminating.

          As a result of the study, we give the detailed comparison of two languages and the percentage of similarity between them.      

Chapter 1. Theory.

1.1. Netspeak.

          1.1.1. Definition of Netspeak.

According to Crystal (2006, 52), Netspeak is viewed as "a novel medium combining spoken, written and electronic properties". In the urban dictionary, Netspeak is "a process of shortening words and replacing letters with different letters and/or symbols to supposedly make the typing process shorter". From our point of view, Netspeak (also called Internet slang, Internet shorthand, AOL speak, AOLese, AOLbonics, leetspeak, Cyber-slang or chatspeak) is a variety of slang languages used in the Internet to simplify and make faster the process of communication.

          1.1.2. History of Netspeak.

          The tendency to reduce words came from SMS messages. Users had limited size of a message and had to find a way to express their thoughts within the bounds of permissible 160 characters per message. With the emergence of Internet Network these shortcuts and emoticons became frequently used, particularly in email and instant messaging, as these are areas where users communicate hastily.

          1.1.3. Vocabulary of Netspeak.

The lexicon includes various elements:

-the terms associated with computer science, software, options and commands that often are the words formed by semantic derivation, i.e. giving new meanings to well-known words

- abbreviations and acronyms

-punctuations and capitalizations (for instance, '!!!!!!!!' and 'STOP IT' instead of simple 'stop it' express anger, anxiety, shouting)

-onomatopoeic spellings (such as 'ahaha')

-emoticons and smileys (including images, memes and gifs)

          1.1.3.1. Abbreviations and acronyms.

Abbreviation is a short form of a word or phrase and acronym is an abbreviation consisting of letters that form a word (due to Macmillan Dictionary). Sometimes, figures substitute words or part of words that are alike in sounding. They are used to conserve energy and space.

          Examples of abbreviations and acronyms:

LOL - laughing out loud

AFAIK - as far as I know

CU - see you

CUL8R - see you later

U@ - you at?

B/C - because

4ever - forever

TI2GO -time to go

XOXO - hugs and kisses

A vast amount of abbreviations and acronyms is available at www.noslang.com

         1.1.3.2. Emoticons.

          It is actually important for social networks' users to express emotions via the Internet. To reach this aim they created emoticons. Emoticons are "verbal descriptions of feelings and sounds as well as denoting signs of affection or approval" (Mann &Stewart 2000, 15). The first emoticons were created by Scott Fahlman in 1982 at Mellon University (Baron 2001, 20) certain sequences and looked like :-) and :-(. In fact, emoticons are certain sequences of punctuation marks, small pictures or short videos (gifs). By the way, emoticons are essential part of communication, now they are even included in the set of symbols in the gadgets' keypads.

          Examples of emoticons:

:-) =):)  ^__^ - smile, happiness, joy

:-( =(:(  :C - sadness, upset

:D  :-D - laugh, lol

;-(  T__T  T^T - cry

*O* ** *^* - delight

O.o Oo O_o - shocked

Another types of emoticons are introduced in Appendix 1.

1.2. Newspeak.

"Newspeak was the official language of Oceania and had been devised to meet the ideological needs of Ingsoc, or English socialism" (G. Orwell '1984').

          Newspeak is a fictional language in George Orwell’s novel '1984'. It is constructed in a way that helps to exclude the expression of points of view not corresponding to Ingsoc (English Socialism). In the process of creation of Newspeak many words and their meanings were excepted and it made the language poor and less expressive. The grammar of Newspeak has several peculiarities: any word can be used as a verb, noun, adjective or adverb; all words are regular; there are no synonyms and antonyms; adverbs and certain adjectives are formed in a standardized way; past tense of a verb is always formed by adding the suffix –ed. Every way of using and forming words is presented in three Newspeak's vocabularies.

          More detailed analysis of Newspeak's grammar and lexis is presented in the second chapter of the research work.

Chapter 2. Comparison of Newspeak and Netspeak.

         In this chapter of our study  the practical part of comparison is presented. Newspeak and Netspeak were compared by following criteria to make more detailed result. We also presented some extracts from G. Orwell's novel '1984' and Internet  resources to reinforce the comparison with the facts.

2.1. Criteria of comparison.

2.1.1.The goal of creation.

"The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible" (G. Orwell '1984').

Newspeak is a tool of limiting intellectual liberty, self-expression and individuality. Any form of thought alternative to the party’s construct is considered as "crimethink" and punished. Newspeak was supposed to exclude the possibility of thoughtcrime, as crimes and errors "were nameless and therefore unimaginable".

The goal of creation of Netspeak is to reduce the time of typing and to make the communication in the Internet faster and expressive with the help of various means. It has no special political meaning in comparison to Newspeak.

Having analyzed the goals of creation we came to the conclusion that they are different and have nothing in common. However, the only thing that unites these languages is the fact that they were created according to the needs of society.

2.1.2. The first appearance.

Newspeak firstly appeared in George Orwell’s novel '1984' published in 1949.
Netspeak appeared with the emergence of the Internet and social networks in the second half of the 20th century.

          The main similarity between these two languages is the fact that they appeared in the 20th century. Although, the most striking difference is that Netspeak in contrast to Newspeak was included into people's speech and is constantly developing nowadays.

2.1.3.The spreading of the language and people using it.

In the course of time Newspeak spreads among the Party members and population of Oceania substituting Oldspeak.

"In the year 1984 there was not as yet anyone who used Newspeak as his sole means of communication, either in speech or writing. ...It was expected that Newspeak would have finally superseded Oldspeak (or Standard English, as we should call it) by about the year 2050. Meanwhile it gained ground steadily, all Party members tending to use Newspeak words and grammatical constructions more and more in their everyday speech" (G. Orwell '1984').

Similar to Newspeak Netspeak spreads wider with the development of society and information technologies among people (predominantly youngsters) surfing the Net and this process gives rise to concern.

2.1.4. Requirements of special skills to use.

          Newspeak demands the knowledge of the Ingsoc policy and the content of Newspeak vocabularies.

" The leading articles in 'The Times' were written in it [Newspeak], but this was a TOUR DE FORCE which could only be carried out by a specialist" (G.Orwell '1984').

          Netspeak demands the awareness of meanings of various shortcuts, abbreviations, acronyms, emoticons.

2.1.5. Grammatical and lexical peculiarities.

2.1.5.1.

          All lexis of Newspeak was confirmed in special dictionary.

"The version in use in 1984, and embodied in the Ninth and Tenth Editions of the Newspeak Dictionary, was a provisional one, and contained many superfluous words and archaic formations which were due to be suppressed later. It is with the final, perfected version, as embodied in the Eleventh Edition of the Dictionary, that we are concerned here" (G. Orwell '1984').

          Alternatively to Newspeak, there are no special dictionaries of Netspeak. Though, it would be unfair not to mention the fact that there are many Web-sites where shortcuts of this language are gathered. For instance:

-www.noslang.com

-www.netspeak.org

-www.onlineslangdictionary.com

2.1.5.2.

          Newspeak is comprised of three vocabularies:

-the A vocabulary that consists of words for everyday life

-the B vocabulary that consists of  words which were constructed for political purposes

-the C vocabulary that consists of words entirely of scientific and technical terms

           Whereas Netspeak is not divided into vocabularies, it includes words that differ in the way of creation (abbreviations, acronyms, IT terms), emoticons, images, popular phrases, short videos (gifs). To draw your attention, in comparison to Newspeak, words in Netspeak can consist of not only letters, but also of numbers and punctuation marks.

2.1.5.3.

          "Its [Newspeak's] vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party member could properly wish to express, while excluding all other meanings and also the possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods. This was done partly by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words and by stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all secondary meanings whatever" (G. Orwell '1984').

          Netspeak's structure and intended purpose has already been analyzed in Chapter 1.

         "The word FREE still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be used in such statements as ‘This dog is free from lice’ or ‘This field is free from weeds’. It could not be used in its old sense of ‘politically free’ or ‘intellectually free’ since political and intellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts, and were therefore of necessity nameless" (G. Orwell '1984').

          However, words in Netspeak do not lose their meanings but, on the contrary, take on second, new significance that sometimes leads to ambiguity. For example, such words as file, edit, contact, view, insert, back, paste, format, open, close, tools, window, help, select, search, refresh, address, history, stop, download, nowadays are associated with computer software, different options and commands.

2.1.5.4.

          "The grammar of Newspeak had two outstanding peculiarities. The first of these was an almost complete interchangeability between different parts of speech. Any word in the language (in principle this applied even to very abstract words such as IF or WHEN) could be used either as verb, noun, adjective, or adverb. Between the verb and the noun form, when they were of the same root, there was never any variation, this rule of itself involving the destruction of many archaic forms. The word THOUGHT, for example, did not exist in Newspeak. Its place was taken by THINK, which did duty for both noun and verb" (G.Orwell '1984').

          Rather similar tendency exists in Netspeak. For instance, noun 'trend' can be used as a verb (It is trending worldwide). Thanks to American sitcom 'The Big Bang Theory' and a British-American crime drama television series 'Sherlock' these phrases became popular: "Smart is the new sexy", "Dead is the new sexy". Adjectives are used as nouns in these sentences. Also young people tend to make up a noun from a phrasal verb (for example, leadin, buildup) and even substitute the verb by preposition (case in point, 'up' instead of 'promote').

2.1.5.5.

"The second distinguishing mark of Newspeak grammar was its regularity. Subject to a few exceptions which are mentioned below all inflexions followed the same rules. Thus, in all verbs the preterite and the past participle were the same and ended in -ed. The preterite of STEAL was STEALED, the preterite of THINK was THINKED, and so on throughout the language, all such forms as SWAM, GAVE, BROUGH, SPOKE, TAKEN, etc., being abolished" (G. Orwell '1984').

It resembles of the fact that in modern English language some irregular verbs become regular. For instance:

-wed (past tense and past participle wed or wedded)

-spell (past tense and past participle spelt or spelled)

-dream (past tense and past participle dreamt or dreamed)

-burn (past tense and past participle burnt or burned)

-knit (past tense and past participle knit or knitted)

2.1.5.6.

          "All plurals were made by adding -S or -ES as the case might be. The plurals of MAN, OX, LIFE, were MANS, OXES, LIFES. Comparison of adjectives was invariably made by adding -ER, -EST (GOOD, GOODER, GOODEST), irregular forms and the more, most formation being suppressed" (G.Orwell '1984').

          There are no similar changes in Netspeak.

2.1.5.7.

 "Adjectives were formed by adding the suffix -FUL to the noun-verb, and adverbs by adding -WISE. Thus for example, SPEEDFUL meant ‘rapid’ and SPEEDWISE meant ‘quickly’. Certain of our present-day adjectives, such as good, strong, big, black, soft, were retained, but their total number was very small" (G.Orwell '1984').

          Though all adjectives stay in Netspeak and do not change, people tend to use only simple of them such as nice and lovely.

2.1.5.8.

     "In addition, any word — this again applied in principle to every word in the language — could be negatived by adding the affix UN-, or could be strengthened by the affix PLUS-, or, for still greater emphasis, DOUBLEPLUS. Thus, for example, UNCOLD meant ‘warm’, while PLUSCOLD and DOUBLEPLUSCOLD meant, respectively, ‘very cold’ and ‘superlatively cold’. It was also possible, as in present-day English, to modify the meaning of almost any word by prepositional affixes such as ANTE-, POST-, UP-, DOWN-, etc. By such methods it was found possible to bring about an enormous diminution of vocabulary. Given, for instance, the word GOOD, there was no need for such a word as BAD, since the required meaning was equally well — indeed, better — expressed by UNGOOD. All that was necessary, in any case where two words formed a natural pair of opposites, was to decide which of them to suppress. DARK, for example, could be replaced by UNLIGHT, or LIGHT by UNDARK, according to preference" (G. Orwell '1984').

         There are no similar changes in word formation in Netspeak.

2.1.5.9.

          "A word which was difficult to utter, or was liable to be incorrectly heard, was held to be ipso facto a bad word: occasionally therefore, for the sake of euphony, extra letters were inserted into a word or an archaic formation was retained" (G. Orwell '1984').

          In contradistinction from Newspeak, words in Netspeak are rather difficult to utter, but it doesn't matter as the faster and more comfortable the word is written the more this shortcut is valued.

2.1.5.10.

          "The B words were not constructed on any etymological plan. The words of which they were made up could be any parts of speech, and could be placed in any order and mutilated in any way..." (G. Orwell '1984').

          It is similar to ways of words' formation in Netspeak, as there are no compulsory rules while creating an abbreviation or acronym.

2.1.5.11.

          "Newspeak was designed not to extend but to diminish the range of thought, and this purpose was indirectly assisted by cutting the choice of words down to a minimum" (G. Orwell '1984').

           The main purpose of Newspeak's creators was to delete from the language so many words as possible. Netspeak, on the contrary, is constantly appended with new lexis.

2.1.6. Influence on culture and people's consciousness.

          Both Newspeak and Netspeak have a great influence on culture and social consciousness. The simpler is the structure of the language, the simpler people think, they can't express their points of view to the full extent, as they can't pick up words for it. Furthermore, universal way of communication turns people into equal persons, kills their individuality, their behaviour becomes foreseeable and, hence, easy to control.

            However, Netspeak isn't connected with politics compared with Newspeak.

 "The B vocabulary consisted of words which had been deliberately constructed for political purposes: words, that is to say, which not only had in every case a political implication, but were intended to impose a desirable mental attitude upon the person using them" (G. Orwell '1984').

 Conclusion.

According to detailed results that we got by comparative analyses, we can confirm that:

-5 from 16 criteria of comparison Newspeak and Netspeak are similar

-5 from 16 criteria of comparison Newspeak and Netspeak are half similar

-6 from 16 criteria of comparison Newspeak and Netspeak are different

          Similar criteria are:

-2.1.3. The spreading of the language and people using it

-2.1.4. Requirements of special skills to use

-2.1.5.4.

-2.1.5.5.

-2.1.5.10.

          Half similar criteria are:

-2.1.2. The first appearance

-2.1.5.1.

-2.1.5.2.

-2.1.5.7.

-2.1.5.6.

          Different criteria are:

-2.1.1. The goal of creation

-2.1.5.3

-2.1.5.6.

-2.1.5.8.

-2.1.5.9.

-2.1.5.11.

         Finally, we calculated the percent of similarity - 48.875% (16 criteria, 1 similar criterion is 6.25%, 1 half similar criterion - 3.125%). This let us deny the fact that modern English language is turning into Newspeak. However, the percent of similarity is rather high, so there is still a risk that Netspeak can become Newspeak put into reality.

 Sources:

1.Orwell,G. NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR[Электронный ресурс]/G.Orwell Режим доступа: http://orwell.ru/library/novels/1984/english/en_app

2.   Rubenfire,J. A look at Orwell’s Newspeak[Электронный ресурс]/J.Rubenfire Режим доступа:  http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2014/09/george-orwell-newspeak/

3. Lenhart,A. Many Teens Use Internet Slang in Schoolwork[Электронный ресурс]/A.Lenhart Режим доступа:http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/Americas/March-April-08/Many-Teens-Use-Internet-Slang-in-Schoolwork.html#1

4. Kolowich,L The Evolution of Language: How Internet Slang Changes the Way We Speak[Электронный ресурс]/L.Kolowich

Режим доступа:http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/how-internet-changes-language

5.Jovanovic,D A QUALITATIVE STUDY OF THE USE OF NETSPEAK IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE CLASSROOM[Электронный ресурс]/D.Jovanovic

Режим доступа:https://lauda.ulapland.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/59855/Jovanovic.Danica.pdf?sequence=2

  Appendix 1

Skype emoticons

Apple emoticons

Memes faces

Краткое описание документа:

Художественное произведение 1984 Джордж Оруэлл.

Without any doubts, every language is constantly changing with the development of the society evolving and adapting to speakers’ needs. In the XX century many languages underwent significant changes. Russian language was simplified in 1918 with the spelling reform (for example, four obsolete letters such as ѣ, і, ѵ, and ѳ and the archaic usage of the letter ъ (called yer, or hard sign) at the ends of words were eliminated) and in 1964 with the orthography reform (for instance, all particles are written separately now). Since 1950s and 1960s the government of the People's Republic of China has promoted simplified Chinese characters prescribed in the List of Commonly Used Characters in Modern Chinese (Xiandai Hanyu Tongyong Zibiao) for use in printing in order to increase literacy. In 1990 the French spelling reforms were held (as an illustration, numbers now are written with hyphens instead of spaces, to avoid ambiguity: 'trois-cent-trente-deux-mille-cinq-cent-un' instead of 'trois cent trente-deux mille cinq cent un'). In 1996 the German orthography reform (Rechtschreibreform) was put into action to make German orthography easier to learn (to demonstrate, a short stressed vowel is followed by 'ss' instead of "ß" nowadays). English language was not an exception. In 1906 The Simplified Spelling Board was founded in the USA, then it published a list of 300 words commonly used in American English and also Handbook of Simplified Spelling (for instance, words 'though', 'through', 'island' after the reform looked like 'tho', 'thru', 'iland'). The process of development never stops. Nowadays we live in a world of information technologies. Mass media and the Internet have a great influence on our lives and, particularly, the language we speak. Actually, the majority of social networks' users tend to reduce and modify words in order to ease and fasten the process of communication. As a result, so-called Netspeak came into being.