In “Language, Appearance and Reality: Doublespeak in 1984”, William Lutz explains how language can be manipulated to disguise its actions or shift responsibility. Referring to this as doublespeak – and exploring four sub-categories: euphemism, jargon, bureaucratese, and inflated language – Lutz identifies how its power is leveraged all around us to enhance truth or make something negative sound nonthreatening. Lutz doesn’t support the use of doublespeak and thinks of it as misleading. The aim of his article is to help readers identify ways in which they are otherwise manipulated by different people and groups due to the pervasive influence and acceptance of deceitful language.
Firstly, Lutz explores euphemism which he explains can be deliberately and appropriately employed in the event of a tragedy – often, as a mollifier to produce gentler connotations. As it is, a person typically passes away (Lutz 382) instead of dies. At the same time, in cases where the U.S. State Department euphemistically refers to killing as unlawful deprivation of life, bombing as a limited duration protective reaction strike or a bullet hole as a ballistically induced aperture in the subcutaneous environment, misleading language serves to bend the truth in order to make dangerous conduct sound reasonable. While doublespeak might seem like unintentional word use, Lutz asserts that it is rather consciously designed to often manipulate (382); euphemism often poses as neutral but contains hidden political or personal agenda to disinfect the issues people encounter.
In the world of business, and rather esoterically, doublespeak can be easy to miss if you are not paying attention or lack knowledge on the topic discussed. Because of this, Lutz demonstrates that in 1978, an airline was able to refer to a plane crash as an involuntary conversion to self-protect against the magnitude of the tragedy. Here, the doublespeak of jargon functions as verbal shorthand used to conceal rather than reveal the truth; under similar circumstances, medical malpractice can become therapeutic misadventure (387) and glass occasional bureaucratese, and Lutz highlights the winding, incomprehensible dialect of Federal Chairman, Alan Greenspan (383) as an example to show how language is often bastardised to overwhelm an audience and make things obscure.
In like manner, when words are used to convey a heightened sense of value, or when a convoluted sense of authority or importance is assigned to a person or thing or event, they are in action as inflated language. To put it differently, when a company announces the initiation of a career alternative enhancement program, what it really means is that workers will be laid off; the term for car mechanic is inflated to mean automotive internist, used cars identify as experienced and the U.S. military describes a premeditated ambush of American troops as engaging the enemy on all sides (383). This type of language extends into academia where doublespeak can also be used when trying to describe things that don’t necessarily have to be bad; that is, it is employed to simply enhance the truth. For this reason, libraries are referred to as learning resource centres.
Ultimately, Lutz urges a reversal of linguistic decay which, according to him, is a necessary step towards political revival and language appreciation. Stressing doublespeak as a matter of intent, he believes that we should have concern about the decadence of language used in public discourse and encourages teachers (or classroom managers) to mandate an internalisation of appreciation for clear, honest communication so that students can find beauty in the correct usage of English and contest its debasement.