This thesis analysed and compared the use of totalitarian language in George Orwell’s novel 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. This thesis highlights the importance of language within...Show moreThis thesis analysed and compared the use of totalitarian language in George Orwell’s novel 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. This thesis highlights the importance of language within totalitarian regimes. Linguistic totalitarian language features were defined and analysed. The linguistic totalitarian features used in this research were compiled based on previously conducted research. The analysed features included loaded language, compound nouns, euphemisms, neologisms, abbreviations, acronyms, and slogans. The novels were read and afterwards analysed through corpus and discourse analysis. The software AntConc was used for the corpus analysis. The instances of totalitarian language use within the novels were highlighted and processed into tables. The novels possessed unique tables and each table reflected one analysed feature. The results were compared and revealed that the novels indeed incorporated totalitarian language features within their texts. The novel 1984 made use of all the seven analysed features. Brave New World made use of six analysed features, leaving out the linguistic feature concerning abbreviations. In addition, the research concluded that the two novels are linguistically comparable as they included frequent instances of the analysed features. However, the novel 1984 included moderately more instances of totalitarian language use.Show less
Metaphors are linguistic, rhetorical devices that have the ability to increase effectiveness of the perception by adding comprehensibility and relatability, thus boosting persuasion. Strategic...Show moreMetaphors are linguistic, rhetorical devices that have the ability to increase effectiveness of the perception by adding comprehensibility and relatability, thus boosting persuasion. Strategic manoeuvring by means of metaphor in political speeches is quite common, yet, only little awareness exists on the subject, especially in the political realm, which is why it is crucial to increase knowledge on this subject. The general purpose of this study is to increase knowledge of the strategic use of metaphors of US Republican and Democratic presidents’ inaugural speeches in the past 20 years, employing Critical Discourse Analysis to address how the strategic use of metaphors compares between the (first) inaugural addresses of President G.W. Bush, President Obama, President Trump, and President Biden, and how these metaphors function. The metaphors in the speeches were identified using existing literature and Lakoff’s Master Metaphor List (1991). Findings revealed that all four presidents’ most frequent conceptual metaphors were the journey, object, building, and war metaphors, which may be explained by both their high rate of conventionalisation and their exceptional rhetorical properties. Furthermore, the Democratic presidents used more different types of metaphors than the Republican presidents did. The Democratic and Republican Presidents used roughly the same number of metaphors relative to their speeches’ word counts. A follow-up analysis may help gain insights on whether voters’ perceptions of presidents are influenced by the inaugural addresses and the role of metaphors and other rhetorical tools in the political genre.Show less
