A Comparison Of Mother Tongue And Richard Rodriguez

In Richard Rodriguez's essay , “ Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood ” he writes about how he struggled as a child who only spoke Spanish but lives in a society where the “public” language is English . He believes that speaking proper English will somehow help him fit into society and find his identity. Throughout the essay he contrast the Spanish language identity and English language identity. As a young boy, Rodriguez finds consolation and safety in his home where they only speak Spanish. He feels that he only has a true identity when he is at home surrounded by those who speak the same language as him

Rodriguez offers a different standpoint on bilingualism, and an argument he presents is that one must be willing to give up part of their native ways when learning a language to fit into the public. Rodriguez considered Spanish a private language and English a public one. This perception made him reluctant to learn English, but at the same time, it motivated him to become a part of the public by learning its language. Rodriguez uses his family life as an example of his native identity. He was not an English speaker when he was young, but upon learning the language, he drifted away from his family, and describes it rather frankly: “I was an American citizen. But the special feeling of closeness at home was diminished by then. . . . No longer so close; no longer bound tight by the pleasing and troubling knowledge of our public separateness . . . . When I arrived home there would often be

There is a common theme between the two novels, a “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan, and “Se Habla Espanol” by Tanya Maria Barrientos. Both novels include an individual that has difficulty speaking another language, either it is their cultural language or English. Having difficulties speaking another language can have a great impact and affect a lot of people’s lives, even those individuals that are surrounded by the people affected. These two novels have abstract agents that teach and regulate literacy. A “Mother Tongue,” is about how Tan’s mother speaks “limited English” which made it challenging for Tan because they started to be judged poorly by others. “Se Habla Espanol,” was to express to other minorities that it is ok to embrace your heritage in a world that sees you differently. Tanya had a struggle speaking her own cultural language. She could not speak Spanish well, even though she was born as a Latino.

Scholar, Gloria Anzaldúa, in her narrative essay, “How To Tame A Wild Tongue’, speaks her many experiences on being pressured on what language to use. She then expresses how the discrimination made her to realize the ugly truth--that people reject languages that aren’t their own. She adopts logos, ethos and pathos in order to appeal toward her audience who is anyone who is not bilingual. One of the perspectives she takes on in her piece clearly expresses the relationship between language and identity and how it creates a conflict between her and the world.

“Mother Tongue” is an essay by Amy Tan that examines the ways in which people treat those who do not speak or act like them. Simply, how people perceive those that are different . The main purpose of “Mother Tongue” is to inform the readers of the ways they might intentionally or unintentionally be treating people who speak broken english as Tan’s mother does. This essay highlights the extreme importance of language and how it connects with everyone’s day to day lives.

Language can be a door to a new world for most people. It can help the person get that higher ranking position in the office or stand out to a company during an interview. For others, it may be a door that gets slammed in their face. This could be losing connection with your family or many other scenarios. The text, Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” is about Amy’s life growing up with her “perfect English” and her mother’s “broken English”. Her mother is a very intelligent woman, but struggles with her English and has a hard time communicating with others. Amy is often used as her mother’s translator to help get her point across. The other text, Richard Rodriguez’s “Public and Private Language” is about Richard’s life growing up as a Spanish boy with a Spanish family in America. His teachers and peers cannot understand his Spanish so the Nuns come to his house and tell his parents to practice English for the children so they can strive in their academics. This soon tears Richard’s family apart from what use to be a happy, talkative family to a few words and alone. These two texts clearly show that language is a door is Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” and Richard Rodriguez’s “Public and Private Language”.

Imagine living in a country where you know you could die at any moment but don’t know how much longer till it happens. That was how much of the population of El Salvador used to feel when the government could not control the big coffee corporations. These out of control corporations, highly feared that the people would want to revolt against them so they hired murderers to kill innocent people to spread fear in the minds of the people of El Salvador. Fear, hate, and sorrow were the common feelings felt by the poor and innocent major population of El Salvador caused by the evil wrongdoings of the government during October 1979 – 16 January 1992. This is how the main character, Jose Luis, of the novel “Mother Tongue” by Demetria Martinez, felt before escaping his beautiful yet over constantly dangerous country, which depended on its cash crop, coffee beans to sell on a foreign market as the country’s main income. However, following the stock-market crash of 1929, a drop in coffee prices became apparent and affected everyone in El Salvador, but the poor especially. Making things worse, the glorious United States was funding the men whom were doing all the innocent killings with more weapons and money to increase their military power. So for Jose Luis the safe haven that he had escaped to was also blatantly funding the war that was killing so many innocent people he knew and had forced him to escape for his own safety. With nowhere else to go in order to find safety the United

Learning a new language seems to have only positive effects. However, for a Mexican American, accomplishing this goal brought him drawbacks in the interaction with his family. In his essay, ‘’Public and Private language,’’ Richard Rodriguez describes the difficulty in learning a new language and the sacrifice he makes to accomplish his goal. Richard Rodriguez shares the difficulty for older people, as they learn a new language; however, for younger generations is easier to learn a new language. Also, the new language creates a lack of communication for Richard Rodriguez.

Speaking two or more languages is like a country having an atomic bomb during a war. The first situation is advantageous to a person and the second situation is advantageous to a country. “Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood” is a memoir of Richard Rodriguez’s bilingual childhood and it was originally published in Hunger of Memory in 1981. In Rodriguez’s memoir, he discusses why he disagrees with bilingual education. His audience is bilingual or anyone that has an opinion towards bilingual education. The purpose in Rodriguez’s memoir is to inform people of the effects of bilingual education and persuade bilingual educators why bilingual education shouldn’t exist.

Introduction - Being a part of a bilingual speaking family, like with my mom and dad who are Chinese immigrants, is an experience that no one can imagine unless you are part of a bilingual speaking family. Experiences such as knowing a language that not many of our neighbors don't know can be frustrating for both sides. Being young in my early years, learning English was not only a struggle for me but for my family. I noticed that my parents struggled learning english and communicating with the outside world. From buying groceries to paying for the bills, I observed the painful experiences that my parents persevere through all these years. I was glad public schools gave me the opportunity to not only learn English but to help my family live in this English superior society.

Why should people nowadays see languages as a big prize? A person speaks more languages have more opportunities are skewed to him because he benefits the profit comparing to a person who speaks only one standard language. It is time for globalization and its effects on children for speaking other languages as a must. In two articles “Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood” by Richard Rodriguez and “Whose Voice Is It Anyway?” by Victor Villanueva, the two authors both expressed their opinions on native language and how the assimilation impacts a child. However, Rodriguez believed that the assimilation was beneficial for him as he had grown up in the English-speaking world and he disliked bilingual education which created many controversy.

Acquiring a new language is a way to change in one 's subjectivity for becoming the person we wish to be that might be unavailable in his first language. Eva Hoffman expresses this in Lost in Translation: “This language is beginning to invent another me” (Hoffman 121). Away from conventional ways of being, doing and talking, individuals are exposed to new linguistic practices, which constitute them as a different kind of speaker. Mariam’s exposure to foreign languages offered possibilities of encoding meanings, which were not allowed in Dari. She was free to speak in front of men in English or Arabic, which she could not do in Dari. Foreign languages also allowed her to have informal and assertive communication, which was not a desirable manner in Dari.

When it comes to language development, learners will vary in their experiences and accompanying strengths and challenges. Even members of the same family with an identical cultural and language background can all experience unique L2 development. In the case of the Oteíza family, the three children all viewed their English L2 learning differently because of their individual external and internal circumstances. Rodrigo, Camila, and Natalia all moved to America from Chile with Spanish as their L1. As they lived in the United States over the course of a couple years, each child showed how their academic, emotional, and physical aspects altered the progress of their English acquisition. All three children were eventually able to successfully learn and apply English in their lives, but each had distinctive experiences and development when it came to their learning environments, motivation, and bilingualism/biculturalism.

“Diga, A...E...I...O...U,” my mom says, urging me to recite the Spanish vowels. “A, E, I, O” I reply with overflowing confidence. With a loving smile, she glanced down at me and congratulates me, finding it adorable that the last vowel slipped my mind. “¡Oh! Y U!” I shout, realizing my mistake. We both look at one another and giggle. Being bilingual has always been a part of me. My parents taught me to speak in their native language at a very young age. My mom would spend hours with me, teaching me how to read. She would sound out vowels and syllables and I would echo everything back to her. Every lesson that I was given ended with a homework assignment. She would assign me words to write, and then for the next lesson, she would quiz me. As a toddler, I remember being extremely impatient and not being willing to do the assigned work. Learning a language is a challenge, even though it is easier for children to learn a language at a younger age, it is still an overwhelming task. My mom knew that and she was incredibly patient with me. Discussions with my mom about what it was like to teach me Spanish have always interested me. She has painted the experience as beautiful and unique. Discussing the topic moves her to tears because she considers the beauty of teaching her own child her native tongue beyond amazing.

One benefit of becoming bilingual as a child, is being aware of others and diversity. In Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood, Richard Rodriguez, tells of his experiences. “The nun said, in a friendly but oddly impersonal voice: “Boys and girls, this is Richard