Linguistic mechanisms of power in Nineteen Eighty-Four: Applying politeness theory to Orwell's world

This article aims to analyze conversation exchanges in Orwell's classic as discourse instances where power, hierarchy and politeness are deeply interwoven. In Oceania – the ultimate example of the individual's denial – characters behave, linguistically and otherwise, according to strict norms, which reify built-in social and interpersonal asymmetries. This article focuses on these asymmetries and, more specifically, looks into the way dialogues are structured, so as to shed some light on the extent to which hierarchy and power are linguistically determined. Brown and Levinson's pragmatic theory of politeness (1987) and later contributions provide the analytical tools to guide this approach, which correspondingly analyses the range of face-threatening acts performed, the forms of redressive action taken to counter those threats and the reasons and goals underlying the use of such forms.