Pragmatics in A Clockwork Orange

The semantics of the language in A Clockwork Orange are fascinating because most of the words
derive from Russian. Unless readers are familiar with Russian, most of them would not know the
meaning of the nadsat terms if it wasn't for the context clues. This is where pragmatics comes into
play: readers use the context around the nadsat terms to figure out what they mean.

1) I turned on the ignition and started her up, and she grumbled away
real horrorshow, a nice, warm, vibraty feeling grumbling all through your
guttiwuts (22).
The word that we want to focus on in the above sentence is horrorshow. Based on the context
around it, the reader will probably realize that it is an adjective, since it is used to describe the way
the car starts up. The reader might also decide that it means good, given the context that when he
put the key in the ignition it started up like he wanted it to: it grumbled away real ____, and it
gave a nice warm feeling. The sum of all these clues would probably lead the reader to believe
that horrorshow means good.
However, the above sentence isnt the only time the reader would come across that word.
Horrorshow is mentioned throughout the book, so that if readers didnt understand it the first
time, they would probably figure out what it meant by the end of the novel. This was Burgess idea
of brainwashing. The reader doesnt have to put forth too large of an effort to begin to understand
nadsat.
A reader would come across the word horrorshow again in the following sentence:

2) The autos parked by the sinny werent all that horrorshow, crappy starry
veshches most of them, but there was a newish Durango 95 that I thought
might do (22).
Again, the context around horrorshow in the above sentence shows that it is an adjective. It also
reveals that it means good because it is used in contrast next to crappy. By saying that the
autos werent horrorshow, they were crappy, Burgess makes it clear that horrorshow means
good or useful.
Now, if readers came across horrorshow in the sentence below, they might not be able to
decipher what the word means because the context doesnt make it clear:

3) They all had a real horrorshow smeck when they viddied my like dismay
(75).
In the above sentence, it might be harder for readers to discern what horrorshow means
because the sentence contain a couple other words that are crucial to the deciphering of the word.
Although horrowshow may still come across as an adjective here, it might be harder to realize
that because nadsat words such as smeck and viddied surround it. Therefore, if the reader
doesnt know the meaning of smeck (to laugh) and viddied (to see/saw), they wouldnt realize
that the narrator is saying that they (the men) had a real good laugh at his expense when they
saw his dismay. This sentence is a good example of how the readers could get lost without good
context with which to understand the nadsat that is thrown in. Pragmatics are crucial for readers to
understand what the narrator says in A Clockwork Orange.

We can look at a couple of other nadsat words in the novel to see if readers can determine their
meaning from the surrounding context clues.

4) There were three devotchkas sitting at the counter together, but there were
four of us malchiks and it was usually like one for all and all for one (5).
In the above sentence, if readers wanted to know what devotchkas meant, they might be able to
figure it out based on the context in the sentence. For one, there are three devotchkas but four
malchiks. If readers caught on that the narrator was including himself in that equation, that
would mean that the narrator is a malchik too. Additionally, the reader would know that the
narrator was with his three friends, meaning that the four malchiks probably meant the four of
them. The most likely guess would be that malchik means man, since the narrator and his
friends are all men. Contrast that with only three devotchkas and the reader might understand
that devotchka means woman. This is where pragmatics comes into play, because the reader
must use the surrounding clues to guess the meaning of the words in nadsat.
One of the easier terms to understand in A Clockwork Orange is gulliver :

5) These sharps were dressed in the height of fashion too, with purple and
green and orange wigs on their gullivers, each one not costing less than three
or four weeks of those sharps wages (5).
In the above sentence, it is relatively easy to decipher the meaning of gullivers, because it is the
place the wigs are sitting on. Wigs usually go on a persons head, therefore, gulliver in this
situation most likely means head. This is where pragmatics come in to play because the reader
uses the location of the wigs to determine what gulliver means. The sentence below also shows
that gulliver is one of the easier nadsat terms to figure out:

6) So I called back: A bit of a pain in my gulliver.

By using the pragmatics of the above sentence, one can see that the gulliver is a location on the
body. Gulliver is usually used in sentences where either someone gets hit in the gulliver, or
someone has a shlapa (hat), or wig on it. Therefore, using pragmatics, readers will know that
gulliver means a location on the body, although what location might be harder for them to figure
out.
Pragmatics are crucial to readers understanding nadsat in A Clockwork Orange.