The NCTE George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language (the Orwell Award for short) is an award given since 1975 by the Public Language Award Committee of the National Council of Teachers of English. It is awarded annually to "writers who have made outstanding contributions to the critical analysis of public discourse."[1]

Noam Chomsky, Donald Barlett, and James B. Steele are the only recipients to have won twice.

Its negative counterpart, awarded by the same body, is the Doublespeak Award, "an ironic tribute to public speakers who have perpetuated language that is grossly deceptive, evasive, euphemistic, confusing, or self-centered."[2]

Winners

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1970s

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1980s

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1990s

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2000s

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2010s

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  • 2010: Michael Pollan, author of Food Rules and co-narrator of Food, Inc.
  • 2011: F.S. Michaels, author of Monoculture: How One Story Is Changing Everything
  • 2012: Peter Zuckerman and Amanda Padoan, authors of Buried in the Sky
  • 2013: Paul L. Thomas whose publications include "Ignoring Poverty in the U.S.: The corporate takeover of public education" (2012) and "Challenging Genres: Comic books and graphic novels" (2010). Dr. Thomas has also edited a recently published volume titled Becoming and Being a Teacher: Confronting Traditional Norms to Create New Democratic Realities (2013).
  • 2014 The Onion for its satire and "treatment of dramatically sensitive issues that plague our culture", in particular U.S. gun culture.
  • 2015: Anthony Cody for The Educator and the Oligarch
  • 2016: David Greenberg for Republic of Spin: An Inside History of the American Presidency
  • 2017: Richard Sobel for Citizenship as Foundation of Rights: Meaning for America
  • 2018: Katie Watson for Scarlet A
  • 2019: Michael P. Lynch for Know-It-All-Society: Truth and Arrogance in Political Culture

2020s

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ "NCTE George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language". National Council of Teachers of English. Retrieved 18 January 2017.
  2. ^ "The Doublespeak Award". www.ncte.org. Archived from the original on 17 January 2018. Retrieved 17 January 2018.
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