The use and effects of fictional argot in Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange

In this article the author provide's some reasons why Anthony Burguess decides to create a particular lexicon (nadsat) for his novel A Clockwork Orange; instead of applying English all the time. Actually, we all asked the air at once when we read A Clockwork Orange introduction: what is he saying? Well, thanks to this article we can now tell why the author wants to express his idea like that.

According to the article, the main reason of Burguess distinguished use of language, is to make a separation between the actual events of the book and the readers understanding. As we can tell, the main character enjoys committing criminal and cruel acts, and thanks to the non-common lexicon at all (which makes you read the same line once and twice to understand what we are told) we can't truly understand what is happening; or at least we poorly understand it. So the language is a shock absorber for that much cruelty. 

I also found very interesting the way the author of the author explains how the nadsat can help the reader understand which character belongs to each part of society. Every teenager around the main character (Alex), or that may share common characteristics of rebellion and uncontrolled fury, usually speak using nadsat upon English language. They are stressed in society for being anomalies progressing to become men of good, but meanwhile they are distinguished for the particular use of nadsat. On the other hand, grown and mature people use English all the time, so nadsat is used to differ on the type of character.

Due that nadsat is a combination of Russian and English words, the new language is more attractive, because mixing English with German or French won’t be as attractive as the mix with Russian; because English language already has borrowings and association with German and French language. So it is more catchy joining English with a complete different language to create a singular way of speaking; which also shows the influence in the young people and society of cultures that appear to be completely separated. dif

Nadsat is another way to express that mankind (even when it shares “a kind”), they keep been different and poorly equal between the variety in ages, social classes and way of living. The article shows us all the time that Burguess number 1 intention is to set boundaries and differing realities; that can be found between characters, between the characters and the readers and between the different uses of language inside the book’s plot.