Language Flashcards
Newspeak AO3 link
Minitrue, Ingsoc = similar to contractions in 20th century totalitarian regimes- Nazi, Politburo
portmanteau words
new words created by blending two together
examples of portmanteau words in 1984
“Memory hole” “doublethink” “newspeak” “thoughtcrime”
= link to bureaucratic obscurantism, hides truth, hides reality
newspeak in the 1984 film version
heard more = immersive for viewer, allowing to experience reality, authenticity of realism
portmanteau words in Handmaids tale
“particicution” -death, execution
“prayvaganza” (link to televangelism)
language used as a weapon in handmaids tale
Offreds audio recordings, documents gilead
“it is an incendiary device” (link to fahrenheit 451)
significance of handmaids names
**Patronymics- **Offred- of-fred
highlights role of handmaids as property, link to old naming
Carol Beran Offred quote
“Offred’s power is in language”
1984 language emasculating Winston
“his small but childish handwriting [….] shedding first it’s capital letters and finally even its full stops”
infantilising himself, pen is a phallic symbol and he cannot control it, emasculating him.
link to Handmaids tale choosing to not use speech marks as a symbol of resistance against masculine literature.
“un babies” and “shredder” link to other text
Wyndhams novel ‘The Crysalids’ 1955
brutal fundamentalist puritan society destroy babies with abnormalities in the name of ‘purity of the Race’
Latin phrase in HT
**Notice te bastardes carborundorum **
• was a joke in Atwoods latin classes
• silent protest used to draw hope
• introduction in book has led to phrase being an important feminist slogan
pen as phallic imagery in handmaids tale
“i envy the commander his pen”
portmanteau word as rebellion HT
ofglen to offred: ‘it’s a beautiful May Day”, -> resistance called Mayday
“we’re cutting the language down…”
“we’re cutting the language down to the bone”
