Original scientific paper

What did Newspeak do to Croatian?

Dubravka Sesar
Ivana Vidović

Abstract

In the period of totalitarianism Slavic languages were especially affected by the phenomenon that G. Orwell (1984) named newspeak. lt is characterized by the so called empty words, semantic black holes and semantic inflation. This resulted in the semantic
devaluation of the public language, primarily in the field of political discourse, and thereby also in the relativization of the literary language form. See ing a general decline of language culture in all Slavic countries, linguists and literary scholars warn that this
decline has not been stopped by the social changes in the early 90s. The confirmation of this fact is found in the reappearance of new speak in the first posttotalitarian years. In this context the situation of the Croatian standard is being considered.

Keywords

Hrčak ID:

76623

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/76623

Publication date:

1.2.2000.

Article data in other languages: croatian

Visits: 2.553 *