In “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” Gloria Anzaldua describes her experiences as a self proclaimed Chicana. She uses rhetorical strategies, including anecdotes, imagery, and appeals to both ethos and pathos, to argue that language is more than just a means of communication; it is part of one’s culture, identity, and self-expression, Gloria Anzaldua opens her argument with an anecdote. The anecdote about the dentist introduces the concept of the wild tongue and how it can be taken literally and symbolically. Another effect the anecdote has is that it hooks the reader and gets them interested in the essay. Through the anecdote Anzaldua appeals to ethos, establishing the ethical ideas of her purpose with taming her wild tongue and to establish her identity as a Chicano speaker. Without the anecdote, she would not be as established in the essay. …show more content…
The imagery she uses to describe her experiences creates a story that allows the audience to better understand the author and connect with her on a deeper level; two rhetorical devices she achieves this with are personification and metaphors. She uses several poetic lines throughout her entire essay. Some are in English while some are in Spanish and others are mixed with both languages. These lines allow her to break up her essay in a unique way, causing her structure to vary. It gives Anzaldua a way to transition into her next idea and convey concepts without having to explain them making her readers contemplate the meaning of the poetic lines before continuing on in the essay. The poetic lines can help establish Anzaldua’s ethos, making her seem more knowledgeable because she has included several quoted lines from published
State University, mentions in her critique of ¡Yo! , “The text concludes by showcasing storytelling, especially in the case of immigrants” (Tompkins 2). These immigrant stories, that so many sympathize over for a moment and soon forget all about, are not stories but the memories of real people. The word “charm” is not a word one would identify with the stories of a brutal Dominican dictatorship. Alvarez uses the word charm to show that people always look for a happy ending when listening to an immigrant’s narration of their reality.
Anzaldua’s use of pathos and anaphora in her speech helps communicate the idea that women of color should have the same ability, as white woman, to write. Gloria Anzaldua is trying to influence women to no let oppression stop them from speaking their minds. Anzaldua believes there are people who are able to see into the future, but do not see; others are able to speak, but do not; others have ears, but do not listen. These kind of people shouldn't be listened because they make assumptions of themselves, and only put ideas on people’s minds. For instance, Anzaldua is making the point that woman should be able to make the reader understand and feel emotions throughout their writing, “You are the truthsayer with quill and torch.
A close reading of the opening paragraphs of Cartagena illustrates how Nam Le employs an anguished juvenile gaze to excuse the anti-feminist portrayal of women in the story. An adolescent narration grants freedom for sexist representations, and one-dimensional female characterizations, because, as a literary technique, it changes how readers engage with a text. A vulnerable lens is exploited by Le in multiple stories across the entire The Boat collection, functioning to justify all the subpar female characters within them. In the passage, the language that is used in relation to girls, restricts, dehumanizes, and strips them of value.
Borderlands/La Frontera. United States: Aunt Lute Books, 1987. Print. In the article, “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, Gloria Anzaldua, a Mexican American and a scholar of Chicana cultural theory, argues that language is part of her identity, and she can not truly accept and be proud of herself unless she accepts and is proud of the languages she speaks first.
Brian Okpei ENGL 203 Professor Nelson Shake 15 November 2017 ***** In order to set oneself apart from the rest, we often tend to establish some sort of unique identity characteristics. This can include clothing styles, musical preferences, personal beliefs and much more indicators. Amongst these indicators is speech which is one of the more significant aspects, seeing as not only can it reveal a lot about someone but also is one of the first things used when evaluating a first impression.
Racial stigmas and stereotypes have negative effects on a multitude of ethnic groups. Across our nation, members of numerous races experience difficulties surrounding their identity and inability to refine their English dialects. Anna Marie Quindlen, an American author, journalist, and New York Times columnist, once said, “Ethnic stereotypes are misshapen pearls, sometimes with a sandy grain of truth at their center... but they ignore complexity, change, and individuality”. Quindlen’s viewpoint is skillfully displayed in “Mother Tongue”, a first person narration by an Asian-American woman, Amy Tan.
Throughout “The Mexican in Fact, Fiction, and Folkore” examines the term “Mexican” as it is applied in Southwest literature and argues the Anglo society has made a conscious effort to misrepresent Mexicans (Rios 60). He states the people of Mexican descent are viewed as un-American because they are perceived as filthy, lazy, and dumb. Ricatelli adds to the conversation of Mexican stereotypes by examining the literary expressions of Chicanas and Mexicanas in the literature of both the United States and Mexico. In “The Sexual Stereotypes of The Chicana in Literature” Ricatelli explains how in Yankee literature, the Chicana is referred to as the “fat breeder, who is a baby factory” meanwhile the Mexican is described as an “amoral, lusty hot tamale” (Ricatelli 51). He makes note of these stereotypes in order to highlight the ethnocentric and nativist points of view that dominated Anglo literature.
Anzaldúa, on the other hand, struggles with the discrimination against her Chicano culture and language. Throughout her essay, “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” she talks about how the languages she speaks are all variant forms of a combination of multiple languages; however, they form the foundation of her culture and her identity. It is
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.
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.
Gloria Anzaldúa, in the essay “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” (1987), claims her experiences as a Chicano taught her that her culture was not looked at highly in comparison to the English language. Anzaldúa argues her view about her Chicano language by giving examples of both cultures Chicano Mexican and American cultures. Anzaldúa’s purpose is to inform her audience on how it is to grow up in a Chicano speaking family. Anzaldúa writes in a frustrating tone throughout the story of her life experiences. Thesis: Anzaldúa use of her personal experiences, and Music, Film and Literature are relevant sufficient and
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.”
She uses all three forms of rhetorical styles, she uses pathos, logos, and ethos in order to establish a connection with her readers but also to illustrate her purpose for the writing. The author also uses different types of rhetorical devices such as anecdotes, forms of diction, quotes, etc in order to convey her perspective and ideas to the readers allowing them to consider the points she presents throughout her text. For example, she uses allusions when she states “Chicanos did not know we were a people until 1965 when Cesar Chavez and the farmworkers united and I Am Joaquin was published and la Raza Unida party was formed in Texas. With that recognition, we became a distinct people. Something momentous happened to the Chicano soul- we became aware of our reality and acquired a name and a language (Chicano Spanish) that reflected that reality”(Anzaldua).
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.
Cofer addresses the cultural barriers and challenges that Latinos experience through emotional appeal, anecdotal imagery, parallelism and the use of effective periodic sentences. In her article, Cofer assesses the difficult cultural hurdles of Latin Americans with emotional appeal. She provides insight on her cultural barriers by first conveying the way she had to dress and her struggle, as it shows in this piece of text, “That morning I had organized… which to base my decision” (Cofer 5). This poignancy works to stress an agonizing feeling of uncertainty and restraint towards the author.