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Gloria Anzaldua’s essay, “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” review
How To Tame A Wild Tongue by Gloria Anzaldua Summary and Analysis
Gloria Anzaldúa’s essay, “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”
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The author does a nice job on addressing misogyny and sexism, gentrification, racism.
Rhetorical Analysis on Anzaldua’s How to Tame a Wild Tongue The passage How to Tame a Wild Tongue is a very defensive and straightforward argumentative essay which defends her language and the people who speak it against the discrimination that the author herself has experienced first hand (Ethos). From this text we can infer that the author is most likely from hispanic descent as she is speaking spanish a lot of the time throughout the text. This text mainly speaks about the discrimination many Mexican-Americans suffer because they are spanish speaking.
In How to Tame a Wild Tongue, Gloria Anzaldua uses rhetoric and personal anecdotes to convey and persuade her argument that Latin Americans are forced to relinquish their cultural heritage, and to conform to white society. The evidence she provides comes in a variety of platforms, both literal and rhetorical. Rhetorical, being through emotional, logical, and credible appeals through her text. Literal being explicitly stated, without any further analysis necessary. When she utilises the modes of appeals, they are subtle within the texts, which leads the reader to analyse as they read.
Written by Gloria Anzaldua, “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, is an opinion easy , a retrospection of her past and a story about identity and recognition of a wild tongue. The following is a rhetorical analysis and personal response of this easy . My analysis will be divided into 4 separate parts including intended audience, main claim, purpose and situation. (a) Intended audience : The first thing that anyone who even skims through this easy would notice is Anzaldua’s multi-lingual language use.
The power of language We all have some form of language limitations, no matter where we come from and what our background is. “Mother tongue” by Amy Tan and “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” by Gloria Anzaldua both share similar themes in their stories that demonstrate how they both deal with how different forms of the same language are portrayed in society. In both stories they speak about what society declares the right way of speech and having to face prejudgment, the two authors share their personal experiences of how they’ve dealt with it.
One of the area of conflict that rose in the book involves the usage of the English language in relation of the family’s native language, Spanish. As a Mexican-American raised in the States the exhibition of the English language, whether the use of the tongue is fluent or not, cause a strain in the Mexican culture as the culture takes in consideration of their romance and richness of history in their native tongue (Rothman 204). Language represent the supporting backbone of a person as the progress in life as the ability to communicate without misunderstands, however a person can cause the loss connection to the past romance of the culture and art of cultivation that brings the language to lifes from their inabilities to comprehend the ability/asset to its fullest potential (Rothman 204). To fully understand the true meaning behind a spoken chain of words can be understood by the method of trying to first comprehend the cultivation of the word and the definition behind them. Cisneros embeds the use of Spanish in fragments depicting a sense of reality within a fictional novel, Caramelo, as well with the use of interchangeable dialogues with spanish phrase to express the illustration of Celaya’s family and the culture in which is translate in of importance of pride.
“So many words were still unknown that when the butcher and the lady at the drugstore said something to me, exotic polysyllabic sounds would bloom in the midst of their sentences. Often, the speech of people in public seemed to be very loud, booming with confidence. The man behind the counter would literally ask, ‘What can I do for you?’ But by being firm and so clear, the sound of his voice said that he was a gringo; he belonged in the public society”(12). Rodriguez describes the way English sounds to him creating an image that the language was very complex to in his perspective.
My Rhetorical Analysis Language is a part one’s identity and culture, which allows one to communicate with those of the same group, although when spoken to someone of another group, it can cause a language barrier or miscommunication in many different ways. In Gloria Anzaldua’s article, “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, which was taken from her book Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, she is trying to inform her readers that her language is what defines her. She began to mention how she was being criticized by both English and Spanish Speakers, although they both make up who she is as a person. Then, she gave convincing personal experiences about how it was to be a Chicana and their different types of languages. Moreover, despite the fact that her language was considered illegitimate, Anzaldua made it clear that she cannot get rid of it until the day she dies, or as she states (on page 26) “Wild tongues can’t be, they can only be cut out.”
I felt confident in using this book as a common source for my own research projects, and it created a wonderful starting point for every blog post I wanted to make. I ended up enjoyed this book not only because of the exquisite research, but because it shed light on a historical woman who is often over look in general history courses, yet who was such an amazing woman that she inspired millions with her voice at a time when African Americans were looked down upon as a lesser being of
He supports this argument by telling his own story of being forced to learn English by the bilingual education system. The experience he had learning English made him experience great embarrassment, sadness, and change. Rodriguez concludes his experience by discussing how English had changed his personal life at home: “We remained a loving family, but one greatly changed. No longer so close;no longer bound tight by the pleasing and troubling knowledge of our public separateness.” By learning English, Rodriguez’s family is finally able to integrate into society without language barriers.
Octavio Paz, a Mexican poet and essayist, is one of the many philosophers with a written piece regarding his understanding of Lo Mexicano. Paz’s “Sons of La Malinche” was first published in the Labyrinth of Solitude in 1950 and is a rather grim interpretation of the Mexican character, however, it captures the crisis of identity that Mexico was burdened with after the conquest. Paz uses the Spanish term “chingar,” (when literally translated means “to screw, to violate”) and its associated phrases to understand the conquest and the effect
In “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” Gloria Anzaldua argues for the permission to define her own Chicano/ Feminist voice without being hindered by stereotypes and limitations. Gloria argues that, “wild tongues can’t be tamed, they can only be cut out,” but specifically argues that different accents stir up one big culture. She says “We oppress each other trying to oust Chicano each other, tying to be the “real” Chicanas, to speak like Chicanos.” meaning each Spanish is a variation of two languages, and that there’s different ways she speaks to others in certain situations like having two tongues. Gloria also argues that she shouldn’t be embarrassed by her language and accent by saying “I am my language” meaning her language is what makes her special and unique.
At 13, Jesse Amesmith first learned how not to speak like a woman. “I read an article in Cosmo or something that was like, ‘13 Ways To Drive Him Crazy in the Bedroom,’ and one of the things it said was that men find high pitched noises in the bedroom to be annoying or a ‘turn off,’” Amesmith said. “So, for a good few years of my young sexual life, I was terrified to make a noise that wasn’t some sort of sultry low mumble, which at 15 or 16 is really awkward and strange.” Jesse is currently the singer and guitarist of the Rochester-based punk band Green Dreams, which has amassed a substantial regional following in their still relatively brief existence (their first demo was released in 2012).
Another thing she mentioned was how her best friend died in a plane crash, because the fire trucks had no water to put the flames out. Or how she grew with an oppressive military government that didn’t value education, especially for women. These are all things that inspire the audience, because the points he made hit home emotionally. The most powerful quote in the whole Ted Talk was when Chimamanda says, “The problem with stereotypes is not that they’re untrue, but that they’re not always complete”. This quote is the main message of her whole story because so many times nowadays people jump to conclusions without thinking that despite popular belief there could be a second side to the
What makes a piece of writing effective? A piece of writing includes many things that make it effective, such as the style that appeals to the reader and rhetorical devices used in the writing that make it much more interesting. In this piece of writing titled “ How to tame a wild tongue “ includes many of these things. Even starting with the title it makes me curious as to what the piece will be about. There are two devices Anzaldua uses effectively in her essay which are anecdotes and parallel structure.
