3. Doublespeak

3.1 Introduction: What is doublespeak?

In 2001, when debate on the detrimental effects of pollution and global warming was raging in the US American media, a leak of a confidential memo embarrassed the Republican Party. In this memo, Frank Luntz, who had been a long-standing communications consultant and lobbying expert advised then President George Bush and the rest of the party to stop using the term ‘global warming‘. He advised them to start using the term ‘climate change‘ instead. The idea was that ‘warming‘ implied a subject — someone or something that was doing the warming — while ‘change‘ implied something that was not necessarily controlled by anyone, nor was it necessarily good or bad.

Euphemisms are often used in what has been termed PC or politically correct language, a term used by cultural and political conservatives to argue that when a new, euphemistic term is used to replace an older term that was considered racist, sexist, or otherwise discriminatory (e.g. ‘mail carrier‘ for ‘mailman‘, or ‘special needs‘ for ‘disability‘), it is a violation of the free speech rights of people to use the original terms. However, from a linguistic perspective, the idea that language influences thought and vice-versa gives credence to the notion that changing the words one uses may influence how one thinks, so promoting PC language aligns with the progressive ideal to improve society and promote social justice and equality. Using PC language or not comes down to whether, where, and how one chooses to be polite (a word related to ‘political’), in other words, the context of use. A progressive might argue that using PC language is in fact an exercise of their free speech rights, and that using a term deemed PC in conservative circles could result in being ostracized.

To promote their ideologies, conservatives may use dog whistle language, a form of doublespeak that covertly signals its meaning only to audiences who are attuned to it; since it may be controversial to state its true meaning publicly, it is euphemistic only to those audiences. For example, ‘family values‘ can sometimes act as a dog whistle to conservative religious voters to mean ‘exclusively traditional heterosexual family structures’. Political correctness among conservatives has also been called ‘patriotic correctness’ (see activity 3.3c below).

3.4 Where is doublespeak used? How does it work?

Not surprisingly, doublespeak is used frequently in advertising and marketing. Real estate ads, for example, are renowned for their use of euphemisms that border on doublespeak, with descriptions of ‘fixer-uppers‘ in ‘up-and-coming‘ neighborhoods. Cars may be sold as ‘pre-owned‘ rather than ‘used‘, and ‘adult entertainment lounge‘ is used instead of ‘strip club‘. An important aspect of consumer literacyis recognizing when doublespeak is being used to sell you something; consumers should remember this especially when purchasing goods and services that are used or that have to do with something unpleasant or a cultural taboo.

In the political sphere, doublespeak is used to mask intentions and support ideologies or narratives that may be untruthful or unpopular. For example, Russian President Vladimir Putin has referred to his 2022 invasion of Ukraine as ‘peacekeeping duties‘, and has made any use of the term ‘war‘ to refer to the invasion illegal in Russia. He has justified the war as ‘denazification‘, even though there is no evidence of neo-nazism in Ukraine; in fact, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy is Jewish and the grandson of a Holocaust survivor (and ironically, this has also not kept many others around the world from drawing parallels between Putin and Hitler). To the Russian populace under Putin’s sway, however, it is easier to believe Russia is ridding their neighbor of Nazi influence and keeping the peace, especially when there are serious penalties if one believes otherwise.

Doublespeak works to influence listeners in several ways. Most obviously, we are more likely to accept an action if it is called something agreeable, whether it actually is agreeable or not. In a study by Walker et al. 2021, 404 participants were asked whether they agree with a particular action or not. Each action in the passage was described either using a euphemism or a dysphemism. For example, participants were asked how much they agreed with Ben’s actions in the following sentences: “Ben invited a provocateur to speak at his university” versus “Ben invited a hate-monger to speak at his university”. The study revealed that people more likely agreed with the first, and that “participants’ evaluations of actions are made more favorable by replacing a disagreeable term (e.g., torture) with a semantically related agreeable term (e.g., enhanced interrogation) in an act’s description” (Walker et al., 2021).

Doublespeak uses euphemisms, and since many people use euphemisms out of politeness or the desire for social harmony, when we hear them we might assume that the speaker means to be polite and wants to avoid emotional response. Even if we recognize the doublespeak is intentionally misleading, we might not be critical of it, or we might just call it a ‘white lie’, in order to maintain social harmony. This is dangerous, however, because it can inure us to its distorted, deceitful, and immoral quality.

Hugh Rank (1980) created a model for understanding how doublespeak functions, along with other propaganda techniques like name-calling. He argued that a speaker or writer who is trying to convince or persuade others will intensify their own good and their target’s bad qualities at the same time they downplay their own bad and their target’s good ones. To intensify, whether their own good qualities or their opponent’s bad ones, they will use repetition, association, and composition. Repetition means saying something over and over again over time, whether it is or isn’t true. Association means leading the audience to connect the good qualities of something to oneself (e.g. a US flag), or the bad qualities of something to the target. Composition means using linguistic and grammatical techniques strategically. To downplay a speaker or writer will use omission, diversion, and confusion, which is where doublespeak comes in to play. A speaker can omit something by just not mentioning it, or they can rename it to avoid saying it directly. They may divert by talking about something else, and they may confuse listeners with the terminology change or by using different or opposite terminology. In short, doublespeak is a way to downplay and confuse people about what they should believe is truth or reality (Rank, 1980 qtd. in Lutz, 2016)

3.5 Jargon

Jargon is “the specialized language of a trade, profession, or similar group, such as that used by doctors, lawyers, engineers, educators, or car mechanics” (Lutz, 2016, p.28). While jargon is necessary for technical communication in different fields, in some cases it can be used as doublespeak, especially when:

“pretentious, obscure, and esoteric terminology [is] used to give an air of profundity, authority, and prestige to speakers and their subject matter. Jargon as doublespeak often makes the simple appear complex, the ordinary profound, the obvious insightful. In this sense it is used not to express but impress.” (Lutz, 2018, p.29).

The major distinguishing factor from euphemism is that jargon is very specific to registers having to do with professions, at the same time it is very low frequency in common registers like everyday conversation or news. For example, ‘glass‘ is a high frequency word which is easily understandable by most people, but ‘fused silicate‘ is a term for glass used by materials scientists and engineers, who use it to contrast it with other similar terms. They know exactly what it means; the problem is when jargon is used for audiences that the speaker or writer knows will not understand it fully.

An additional problem is that jargonistic sentences are often written with redundant language, unclear subjects, and multiple embedded clauses. For example, a tow truck driver manual might state: “When the process of freeing a vehicle that has been stuck results in ruts or holes, the operator will fill the rut or hole created by such activity before removing the vehicle from the immediate area” (plainlanguage.gov). If we simplify the sentence by de-embedding the clauses and removing redundancies, it becomes a lot more comprehensible: “If you make a hole while freeing a stuck vehicle, you must fill the hole before you drive away” (plainlanguage.gov).

When multiple jargonistic words are piled on top of each other, it contributes to bureaucratese, a register found in governmental and traditional institutions that is also characterized by euphemism and weasel language, or language that obfuscates agency, authority, and responsibility. In order to tackle bureaucratese and jargon in the USA, the US government passed the Plain Writing Act in 2010 which requires all federal government agencies to use plain language that the public can easily understand.

Module authors: Anuj Gupta & Jonathon Reinhardt

Last updated: 26 October 2022

This module is part of Critical Language Awareness: Language Power Techniques and English Grammar, an open educational resource offered by the Clarify Initiative, a privately funded project with the goal of raising critical language awareness and media literacy among students of language and throughout society.