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  3. Politics and English In our time, political speech and writing

Politics and English In our time, political speech and writing

游客2024-12-22  12
问题                Politics and English
   In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British role in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of political  parties. Thus, political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them.
   The inflated style is itself a kind of euphemism. A mass of latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outlines and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, such as "keeping out of politics:.  All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer.
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答案                         政治与英语
   在我们这个时代，政治演讲和文章多半是为不可辩解的事情进行辩解。像维持英国在印度的统治、俄国的清党和流放、在日本投掷原子弹这样的事情，确实是可以辩解的，不过只能用大多数人所不能接受的蛮横的论据，而这又不合那些政党所标榜的宗旨。因此，政治语言就不免主要由委婉含蓄的隐语、偷换概念的诡辩和纯属掩饰的含糊其辞所组成。没有设防的村庄遭到空中轰炸，村民被驱赶到荒野，牲畜被机枪扫射，茅屋被燃烧弹焚毁，这叫做绥靖。千百万的农民被剥夺农田，身无长物，跋涉于途，这叫做转移人口或调整边境。未经审判即遭长期监禁，或者后脑挨上一枪，或者被遣送到北极圈伐木营劳改而患坏血病致死，这叫做消除不稳定因素。如果你要称谓某种事物而又不愿读者在心中联想起它们的画画，这种用词是必要的。
   这种虚饰的文风本身就是一种隐语。一大堆带有拉丁词根的词汇像雪花一样落在事实上，模糊了界线，掩盖了一切细节。不诚实乃是简明语言的大敌。在一个人的真正意图和公开宣称的意图之间有距离时，他就会像出于本能一样借助于大话和空话，就像墨鱼放墨汁。在我们这个时代，“不问政治”这种事情是没有的。所有的问题都是政治问题，而政治本身又集谎话、借口、蠢事、仇恨之大成。总气候一量恶化，语言就会受害。
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