1984 Terms Explained: Newspeak, Doublethink, Thought Police and Proles
1984 introduced a whole vocabulary that is still used today. Newspeak is the Party's shrinking official language, doublethink is the ability to believe two contradictory things at once, thoughtcrime is the crime of thinking against the Party, the Thought Police hunt it down, and the proles are the poor majority left outside politics.
Below is a guide to the key terms, with how each is used in the novel.
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Newspeak | The official language, designed to limit thought |
| Doublethink | Holding two contradictory beliefs and accepting both |
| Thoughtcrime | Thinking anything against the Party |
| Thought Police | Secret police who detect thoughtcrime |
| Proles | The working-class majority, 85 percent of people |
| Ingsoc | English Socialism, the Party's ideology |
| Unperson | Someone erased from all records |
| Memory hole | Chute where documents are burned |
| Telescreen | A screen that broadcasts and watches |
| Two Minutes Hate | Daily ritual of rage against enemies |
| Room 101 | Room containing each prisoner's worst fear |
What is Newspeak?
Newspeak is the language the Party is developing to replace standard English, which it calls Oldspeak. Its aim is to make rebellious thought impossible by removing the words needed to express it. Syme, who works on the dictionary, tells Winston that each new edition is smaller than the last. Words are merged and simplified: bad becomes ungood, and very good becomes plusgood or doubleplusgood. The novel's appendix explains the language in detail.
↑ Back to the topWhat is doublethink?
Doublethink is the mental discipline of holding two contradictory beliefs at once and accepting both, while forgetting that you are doing it. It allows Party members to know that the Party is lying and still believe what it says. The Party slogans are examples: war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.
↑ Back to the topWhat are thoughtcrime and the Thought Police?
Thoughtcrime is any thought that questions the Party; Winston knows that simply keeping a diary makes him guilty. Facecrime is an expression that gives a thought away. The Thought Police use telescreens, hidden microphones and informers to find thoughtcriminals, who are arrested, usually at night, and often vanish. Crimestop is the instinctive habit of stopping a dangerous thought before it forms.
↑ Back to the topWho are the proles?
Proles, short for proletarians, are the working-class majority, about 85 percent of the population. The Party keeps them busy with work, cheap entertainment, gambling and beer, and barely watches them. Winston believes that if there is hope, it lies with the proles, because they are strong enough to overthrow the Party if they ever became aware of their power.
↑ Back to the topWhat do unperson, vaporized and memory hole mean?
When the Party decides someone should disappear, that person is vaporized: arrested and killed, and every record of them removed so they become an unperson who never existed. Documents to be destroyed are dropped into a memory hole, a slot that sends them to hidden furnaces. Winston's colleague Syme becomes an unperson during the story.
↑ Back to the topWhat are Ingsoc, the telescreen and the Two Minutes Hate?
Ingsoc, short for English Socialism, is the Party's ideology. The telescreen is a device in every Party member's home that both broadcasts propaganda and watches whoever is in front of it; it can never be turned off. The Two Minutes Hate is a daily ritual in which workers watch films of the enemy Goldstein and scream with rage, and Hate Week is a longer festival of the same. Room 101 is the room in the Ministry of Love that holds each prisoner's worst fear.
↑ Back to the topMore about 1984
This guide discusses the whole plot, including the ending.