If they didn't, why would "p.c." exist at all?
Jim Chapin
i think there may be a difference between levels of thought. language allows for articulated and rationalised thought, without which one can still have intuitions, feelings, emotions etc even if precise analogues for those *ideas* don't exist in language.
so in politically correct language the term 'nigger' doesn't exist (unless, possibly, you are a self-empowered man of colour), although even if the word was completely excised from memory certain individuals would probably feel the need to invent a word that expressed a hatred of otherness.
in 1984 language does not so much stop individuals from thinking things as it does prevent them from communicating their thought-crime to others. the state is therefore trying to prevent people from establishing solidarity in opposition.
one more thing - and i'm half asleep, btw, so this may be complete bollocks (how bendict wrote so coherently after midnight is beyond me). it seems to me that the most successful examples of language engineering in rw history are those that modify meaning rather than vocab. examples abound in communist china, the soviet union, the us army, the palestine-israel conflict and the modern british labour party. the terms 'counter-revolutionary' and 'terrorist' spring to mind.
so pc language probably wouldn't succeed in eradicating certain thoughts, although it may be effective in supressing their easy communication by making their expression socially unacceptable.
IMO FWIW
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