Orwell is awesome, but his linguistics were long-ago debunked. For a good, easy-going (popular) assessment of modern linguistics pick up one of Steven Pinker's

Orwell is awesome, but his linguistics were long-ago debunked. For a good, easy-going (popular) assessment of modern linguistics pick up one of Steven Pinker's books. He tries to ram through his own conception (mentalese), but despite this he still offers a nice survey (and strong argument against Orwell).