Politics of Language in George Orwell’s Animal Farm

Animal Farm has been analyzed by numerous researchers from different perspectives, such as hegemony, political allegory, historicism, and symbolism. However, the linguistic aspect, especially the rhetorical features, of the novel has hitherto remained unexplored. The current study hypothesizes that rhetoric is an important aspect of Animal Farm. Using Aristotle's classical model of rhetoric as a tool of analysis on the pigs' discourse in Animal Farm, considering the three types of rhetoric i.e. Forensic, Deliberative and Epideictic, and the three modes of persuasion i.e. Logos, Ethos and Pathos, the study explores the strength and intelligibility of the pigs' complex discourse. Foregrounding the aforementioned mechanism of persuasion operational in the speech and act of the novel, particularly in the language of Major and Squealer, the study argues that politics of language can be seen as the most powerful means of acquiring and sustaining dominance. Highlighting the pigs' intricate discourse, the study concludes that revolution on the animal farm is the result of ingeniously crafted powerful rhetoric of the pigs appealing to both rational and emotional faculties of the animals and thereby directing them on the desired course.