Abstract
The monograph Language and totalitarianism analyses the relation between these two phenomena. The aim of the thesis is to present the relation between communication and political systems, concretely between language and totalitarianism.
Starting by the analysis of key thinkers in the area of totalitarianism like Hannah Arendt, Carl Joachim Friedrich, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Juan José Linz or Raymond Aron the thesis formulates its own operational definition of totalitarianism. After an explanation of totalitarianism, it turns its interest to the communication theory of Karl Wolfgang Deutsch, which presents an interesting point regarding the relation between communication and political systems.
After presenting this view, it analyses language, concentrating on the way how Ferdinand de Saussure and Ludwig Wittgenstein viewed it. On the background of George Orwell’s totalitarian language newspeak it shows one possible example of practical usage of a totalitarian language.
This view is then summarized and practically shown in a qualitative analysis of the totalitarian language in Czechoslovakia during the communist regime between the years 1948 and 1989. It is demonstrated on the paper Rudé právo, the key paper of the regime.
After this analysis, an effort is made to explain the fall of the communist regime as a result of malfunctioning communication. At the end of the thesis, it is demonstrated that some aspects of totalitarian regimes can also be traced in current liberal democracies.
The motivation of this monograph is to contribute to the extension of knowledge on the relation between communication and political systems. More concretely, it tries to show that falls of regimes can be analyzed from the point of view of malfunctioning communication.
It shows that language can truly be a powerful instrument of power but also that if it is dealt with as such, no regime can endure.