Doublespeak

As Melissa Murphy makes clear in her article, the government is particularly adept at employing doublespeak; doublespeak has lately become one of the most powerful propaganda tools. For example, several years ago the issue of estate taxes crept into the news. Estate taxes are basically the government taxing a person's estate upon their death. The tax mostly affects the very wealthy, those whose assets are actually large enough to be classified as an "estate" in the first place. Due to some powerful lobbying efforts, many politicians were determined to eliminate the estate tax. To do so, however, the politicians had to change the name to make the tax sound completely offensive and unpalatable. They came up with a great doublespeak for the estate tax: death tax. Calling it the death tax made the term laden with gory images, horror, and pain. Suddenly those persons who would normally vote for keeping the estate tax in place, mainly working class or lower income people, were voting against it. Another example of how the government uses doublespeak to sway the public is by calling the war efforts in Iraq the general "War on Terror." It has been clear for a long time that the "War on Terror" was a doublespeak, but the media played right into it, Orwell-style.

Deborah Tannen asserts in her article "Why Don't You Say What You Mean" that speech need not be direct to be powerful, and that indirectness is "a fundamental element in human communication," (1). She cites numerous examples in which indirect communications might actually be more effective than direct communications. However, Tannen does not imply that doublespeak is an admirable form of indirect or mitigated communication. Rather, Tannen acknowledges that especially in certain cultures, indirect speech is more effective than direct speech; indirect orders are often perceived in a non-threatening way. Her views do tie in to the government's use of doublespeak to manipulate the public, however, as the indirect nature of doublespeak does seem to work and definitely helps sway the public. Both doublespeak and indirect speech are often more effective than direct communication; otherwise we would be dealing with estate taxes and a War on Iraq.

Works Cited

Murphy, Melissa. "Doublespeak."

Tannen, Deborah. "Why Don't You Say What You Mean?"