Newspeak

Orwell plays with the idea of using language to control people.  Language controls and limits what people think.  In Oceania they created a new language called Newspeak.  Newspeak is a language in its beginning years.  Winston and his friends do not use it very often, but sporadically.  Syme is one of the people who is helping to create the Newspeak dictionary and he explains that the ultimate goal is to keep cutting the language down.  Instead of new words being added like in normal languages, they want to keep eliminating words that they decide are unnecessary or that could be used to think or say things that are contrary to what the Party believes or that is in opposition to Big Brother.  By doing this the Party will have the people completely under their control.  Nobody will be able to think or speak in opposition of them because there will be no words in which to explain that notion.

This concept is hard for me to relate to because I cannot imagine a world in which I am incapable of having an opinion different from everyone else.  Before reading this book, I never thought of language as something that could limit/does limit our thoughts.  The Party uses many techniques to control the people of Oceania.  They constantly monitor everyone through telescreens, they have the thought police who can read what people are thinking, and they can manipulate history in order to make the Party always be right.  Once they complete Newspeak, though, I believe that it would be the greatest form of control that they have.  It would be a way for them to eliminate 100% any chance of a rebellion.  There couldn't even be talk of a rebellion because no one would be able to say or think that the Party was in any way bad or not perfect.