Inquiries · open · since 16 Oct 2026 · last tended 17 Oct 2026
What does power do to language, and how do we read what it forces to hide?
Power bends the words everyone uses, and forces some to write between the lines; the first leaves measurable traces in a dated corpus, the second can only be claimed with evidence.i
- det. 17 Oct · measuredA first map of the corpus: 36 works dated and linked by the posts that discuss them, each with its stance; Asensio’s own texts and the terms quoted in them are left out until they are checked against the text.
- det. 16 Oct · interpretedWorking formulation: two actions of power on language, one measurable in a corpus, one that can only be claimed with evidence.
- det. 16 Oct · interpretedOpened from a remark: Orwell’s newspeak, Klemperer’s account of the language of the Third Reich, and whether hermeneutics and Strauss’s “Persecution and the Art of Writing” belong to the same set.
Position
An explored field, not a discovery: Klemperer, Orwell and Kraus, and in French Hazan or Semprun, have described it. The inquiry adds instruments: dated corpora, and language models used both as tools and as objects of study.i
What it refuses to claim
- Not every ambiguity is a hidden message: a reading between the lines must say what would prove it wrong.
- Newspeak is a fiction: “fewer words, fewer thoughts” is tested, not assumed.
- No equivalence between regimes drawn from vocabulary alone.
Working concepts
- Bent word
- a word whose value or referent is changed by use imposed from above, while its form stays the same.
- Writing between the lines
- Strauss’s thesis: under persecution, some authors say their thought only to readers able to look for it.
- Hermeneutics of suspicion
- Ricoeur’s phrase for readings that look behind what a text says; useful, and dangerous when nothing can refute it.
Experiments
- proposed
From the sources to the words. List the words the French sources point to (Hazan, Semprun, the works on Asensio’s blog), then check their rise in a dated corpus. Klemperer is the model of method, not the list.
- proposed
A removed word. Can a language model reason about a concept when its word is removed from the prompt, or banned from its output?
- proposed
Between the lines. Do models find hidden meanings in texts that have none? Texts with a documented double meaning, and controls without one.
- running
A map of the works. The works gathered under “Études sur le langage vicié” on Juan Asensio’s blog, dated and linked to each other; a first version is below, works only, each with its stance.
What it could lead to
- already feeding A map of works on language and power, linked, dated and searchable, with the stance of each source stated; built as a tool other pages can reuse.i
- an idea A Spicilège notebook for this inquiry, to find new sources as it goes. · Spicilègei
Reading
Books on Julien’s shelves, and a list of 39 entries to map.
The French titles are on Julien’s shelves, not yet reread for this inquiry; the others are cited as landmarks of the field.
- Victor Klemperer, 1947. LTI, Lingua Tertii Imperii
- George Orwell, 1949. The Principles of Newspeak (appendix to Nineteen Eighty-Four)
- Leo Strauss, 1952. Persecution and the Art of Writing
- Éric Hazan, 2006. LQR, la propagande du quotidien
- Jaime Semprun, 2005. Défense et illustration de la novlangue française
- Bruce Bégout, 2008. De la décence ordinaire
Map of the works
- e year to verify
All works as a table
| Year | Work | Category | French edition cited |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1797 | La Harpe, Du fanatisme dans la langue révolutionnaire | Other work discussed | |
| 1814 | Constant, De l'esprit de conquête et de l'usurpation | Other work discussed | |
| 1821 (to verify) | Maistre, Les Soirées de Saint-Pétersbourg | Author known for far-right or counter-revolutionary positions | |
| 1899 | Conrad, Heart of Darkness ; Steiner, The Portage to San Cristóbal | Other work discussed | not cited |
| 1901 | Darien, La Belle France | Other work discussed | Stock ; Prairial |
| 1906 (to verify) | Mauthner, Die Sprache | Classic work on language and power | Bartillat, tr. Jacques Le Rider |
| 1913 | Michelstaedter, La persuasione e la rettorica | Other work discussed | L'Éclat (?) |
| 1925 | Ortega y Gasset, La deshumanización del arte | Other work discussed | Sulliver, 2008 |
| 1936 | Bonnard, Le drame du présent. Les Modérés | Author known for far-right or counter-revolutionary positions | Grasset |
| 1939 | Jünger, Auf den Marmorklippen | Other work discussed | Gallimard, 1942 |
| 1946 (to verify) | Picard, Hitler in uns selbst (L'Homme du néant) | Classic work on language and power | not cited |
| 1947 | Boutang, Le secret de René Dorlinde | Author known for far-right or counter-revolutionary positions | La Différence, 1991 |
| 1947 | Klemperer, LTI | Classic work on language and power | Pocket, Agora, 1998 |
| 1949 | Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four | Classic work on language and power | Agone, 2022 ; Folio, 2021 |
| 1952 | Kraus, Dritte Walpurgisnacht | Classic work on language and power | Agone, 2005 |
| 1953 | Miłosz, Zniewolony umysł (La pensée captive) | Classic work on language and power | Gallimard, 1953 ; Folio, 1988 |
| 1953 | Robin, La Fausse Parole | Classic work on language and power | Minuit ; Le Temps qu'il fait, 1985 |
| 1961 | Vier, Littérature à l'emporte-pièce | Other work discussed | éditions du Cèdre |
| 1962 | Burgess, A Clockwork Orange | Classic work on language and power | Robert Laffont, 1972 |
| 1967 | Steiner, « La retraite du mot » (Language and Silence) | Classic work on language and power | Seuil / 10-18 |
| 1973 | Canetti, Die Provinz des Menschen | Classic work on language and power | Albin Michel, 1978 |
| 1974 (to verify) | Pieper, Missbrauch der Sprache – Missbrauch der Macht | Other work discussed | Ignatius, 1992 (angl.) |
| 1978 | Burgess, 1985 | Classic work on language and power | Robert Laffont |
| 1994 (to verify) | Domecq, Artistes sans art ? | Other work discussed | Pocket, Agora, 1999 |
| 1995 | Beyer, Flughunde (La voix de la nuit) | Classic work on language and power | Calmann-Lévy, 1997 |
| 2001 (to verify) | Bouveresse, Schmock ou le triomphe du journalisme | Classic work on language and power | Seuil (?) |
| 2004 (to verify) | Taillandier, Une autre langue | Other work discussed | Flammarion |
| 2005 (to verify) | Evard, Signes et insignes de la catastrophe | Other work discussed | L'Éclat |
| 2005 | Semprun, Défense et illustration de la novlangue française | Classic work on language and power | Encyclopédie des Nuisances |
| 2007 | Dewitte, Le pouvoir de la langue et la liberté de l'esprit | Classic work on language and power | Michalon |
| 2009 (to verify) | Stroh, Die Macht der Rede | Other work discussed | Les Belles Lettres, 2010 |
| 2011 | Camus, Le Grand Remplacement | Author known for far-right or counter-revolutionary positions | |
| 2015 | Sansal, 2084. La fin du monde | Classic work on language and power | Gallimard |
| 2019 (to verify) | Mari, En pays défait (interview) | Other work discussed | Pierre-Guillaume de Roux |
| 2020 | Bordas, Cavalier noir | Other work discussed | Gallimard |
| ? | Soulié, Racination (interview) | Other work discussed | Pierre-Guillaume de Roux |