Character Analysis of a Politician

Based on George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language”

Due: Monday 9/12

Purpose: Explore the validity of Orwell’s claims about language in regards to political language. Specifically, examine his view that politicians manipulate language in order to achieve a desired look, reputation, characteristic, or belief.

Here is a review of the issues Orwell describes

  • Stale imagery
  • Imprecise diction
  • Dying metaphors
  • Operators, or false limbs
  • Pretentious diction
  • Meaningless words
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  • Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
  • Never use a long word where a short one will do.
  • If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
  • Never use the passive where you can use the active.
  • Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you think of an everyday English equivalent.

Directions:

  1. Choose a politician and one speech of a healthy length. (Don’t be a minimalist, but be realistic). Copy and paste the transcript of his or her speech onto your document. I have listed some possible resources at the bottom of the page. You do not need to choose a Presidential candidate. You can choose a candidate for a local office, a political figure (like Michelle Obama), or a past political figure. You don’t even need to go American.
  2. At the top of your document, list the following information:

1)Name of the politician

2)Name, date, occasion, topic, etc of the speech

3)PRIMARY language crime(s) identified (i.e. pretensions diction, false limbs, etc). Focus on the 1-3 major crimes to illustrate intentional PATTERNS.

4)Create a key for the highlights you will use.

  1. Find examples of the language crime(s) used most often in the speech and highlight at least five (5) examples. You can print your document and complete this with highlights OR you can do this in Google Docs and share the document with me. Don’t forget to create a key.
  2. At the bottom of the document, write a brief analysis of the speech. In what ways do the language crimes help the speaker to create a desired look, reputation, characteristic, or belief? AND in what ways do the language crimes prevent the speaker from creating a desired look, reputation, characteristic or belief? You might need to consider context and audience to help you answer this question. No more than 600 words.

  1. And then create a meme.
  • Copy and past the speech into Wordle (
  • Based on your analysis and your observations of the wordle, decide on one thoughtful adjective or phrase to describe your politician within the context of the speech.
  • Create a meme to illustrate your thinking.
  • Here are 2 resources: memegenerator.net OR
  • Include a copy of your meme at the bottom of your paper.
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Here is a starting point: 2016 Presidential Nominees

I was unable to find a comprehensive list of speeches for all 4 major candidates. I linked to at least one speech, but you can google around and find others.

Democrat: Hillary Clinton

Republican: Donald Trump Warining: this in on LATimes website and they have annotated the speech with their reactions. I would encourage you to make your own reactions.

Green Party: Dr. Jill Stein

Libertarian: Former Governor Gary Johnson

Or consider looking at some of these resources:

Politico.com

American Rhetoric:

Activity taken from: