Tame A Wild Tongue Essay

One individual refers to her different speaking styles between her family and a formal setting (Hutcheson and Cullinan, 2017).The drastic differences in the two settings shows how advance African American English is. Someone can be going from a casual conversation with a relative to having an educated conversation with a coworker effortlessly. To switch between the “two tongues” was often taught in school to help advance individual’s language without hindering their original way of speaking.

Gloria Anzaldúa was a Texas-born, lesbian, Latina, feminist, that wrote about many of her personal experiences and views of the diverse background she grew up in. Growing up a certain culture at home and being in a country with a different culture, brings along a lot of self-identifying issues. Gloria Anzaldúa uses various strategies and languages to write this powerful piece by code-switching, quoting others, diction, and rhetorical questions. Anzaldúa’s “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” speaks about the social issues that Latinos face involving identity, language, and sexism.

Gloria Anzaldua, the author of “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” expresses a very strong tie that she has to her native language. Anzaldua grew up in the United States, but spoke mostly Spanish. She did not speak the normal form of Spanish though; she spoke Chicano Spanish, a language very close to her heart. The text focuses on the idea of her losing her home accent, or tongue, to conform to the environment she is growing up in. From a very young age, Anzaldua knows that she is not treated the same as everyone else is treated. She knows that she is second to others, and her language is far from second to others as well. Anzaldua stays true to her language by identifying herself with her language and keeping

Code switching is a part of everyone’s daily life. Gloria Anzaldua expressed how she used code switching in her story “How to Tame a Wild Tongue.” Anzaldua grew up in Texas, near the Mexico border, to a Mexican-American family. Her family primarily spoke Spanish, but while at school and in the community, they had to speak English, the accepted language of America (Anzaldua 530). Anzaldua did not want her native language to die, so she wrote “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” to express her feelings, and to show how code switching affected her everyday life. In the story, Anzaldua expressed that depending on who she was talking to,

Spanish is my native language, however, my mother advised my siblings and I to speak only English. This was because she was afraid that we would be rejected from professional careers if our English wasn 't unaccented, fluent, and similar in refinement to the working class whites. With time, I became a fluent English speaker with a developed Central American accent but like, any other young girl, I thought nothing of it. That is until one event, in particular, occurred that would cast a shadow of embarrassment onto my Spanish language. This event not only led me to desert my entire native language but a sense of my cultural identity, as well.

The essays, "Mother Tongue" by Amy Tan and "Public and Private Language" by Richard Rodriguez are recollections of both of the author’s personal encounters and difficulties with the gap that was created between their families by differences in languages. These two writers grew up with bilingual families, in which English was not the primary language. Consequently, they had a hard time accepting and understanding the issues surrounding the different languages they spoke with their families at home, and within society. Because of this, the gap between their public and private languages that had been created through the introduction of a second language slowly grew larger, and eventually impacted their relationships with their family and caused them to view them in a different light. In their writing, Both Tan and Rodriguez reflect on their personal experiences and memories and illuminate the effects that a private language can have on various aspects of life.

The "Public and Private Language", by Richard Rodriguez and "Mother Tongue", by Amy Tan are great examples of how two immigrant families can have their similarities and differences. For a long time, the American people have looked at immigrants through their own eyes and perspectives. Never do people think to change gears and walk in the footsteps of a stranger. In this case, people need to look through the eyes of an immigrant and see that one immigrant family is not the same as the other. The different people may have connections with the same or different cultures, however, they have different obstacles and hardships with adjusting to a new way of living.

For being the Chicanos means you are the “other.” You are inferior to the dominant discourse by speaking a different language.In the essay,” How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” Anzaldua explains how the Chicanos are referred as a marginalized groups because their cultural language is found different and also inferior to the English dominant discourse. As a result, the Chicanos people then felt uncomfortable of speaking their language to other people, as they thought they were making low expectations of them by speaking an unfamiliar language; therefore, they start speaking the English discourse as a neutral language to communicate without feeling embarrassed. However, Anzaldua is against the idea of the Chicanos people by speaking the English

Language is an essential part of a person; through language, you will find a person’s culture and nationality. In “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, Gloria Anzaldua, demonstrates her stance of language and how she proudly admits that language, to her, is an identity that makes her feel whole . She also expresses hardship growing up because some people are not willing to accept her for who she is and forcefully attempts to make her change.

In the essay, “Mother Tongue”, Amy Tan lays out examples of noticing the different Englishes in her life and how she incorporates them into her writing. She also breaks down the different versions of English that have taken root in her life. Tan notes that she includes all the Englishes of her life in her book, The Joy Luck Club. Tan, the daughter of immigrants, learned to navigate between the “perfect” English of her professional life and the “broken” English of her youth. The author’s main claim of there being no perfect way of speaking English is one that can be easily recognized because Tan gives clear examples of the diverse versions of English in her life, she pinpoints moments in which she sees the differences and discovers how to accept and acclimate these differences to her life and career.

The most surprising part of this book was when God opened Megan’s ears and her heart to the Haitian language. I loved how God equipped her with understanding of the Haitian creole language and the ability to speak it. When I read this part in the book, I re-read it multiple times to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Initially, to be honest I thought Lord did your really do that? No, I thought, I don’t believe that part of this story. God immediately allowing her to communicate with the Haitians with no training or classes, could this be true? Then God brought to my mind of how speaking in tongue was utilized in the bible for people of different nations to communicate, speaking in an understood language. If he could do that for them, why would

My topic of choice has to do with the concept of code switching in a social concept. We all adapt our language, slang and otherwise based upon social constructs more than anything I feel, whether it be formal, informal, professional, academic or otherwise. I chose this topic because for the first time in years I live in a very linguistically diverse environment. I have two roommates from the heart of Baltimore City and one from Scotland and myself who (by virtue of length) consider myself more Eastern Shore; I thought it interesting to keep track of the code-switching between conversations between several linguistically diverse individuals and how code-switching occurs depending upon conversation topics.

Out of curiosity, two friends decide to sneak through the back door of a recently deserted old mansion. They explore in silence for fear of the unknown. The first person ahead constantly looks back at the second person. What is bound to go through the second person's mind? Is it unsafe ahead? Is something wrong? What is the person ahead trying to communicate? That is an example of how a horse would feel when led by a human who looks back at him. Remember, horses rely on good leadership for survival. So, with the human constantly looking back, it tells the horse that the person is not safe to follow. The human is not a leader. Leadership is guiding another with confidence. Clear communication achieves harmony with the horse through body language

immediately codeswitch to my mother tongue, so I can communicate easily and maintain my cultural identity. I consider myself as a Goan living in England, I speak English with others because for one: they wont understand konkani for it is a foreign language and is a dialect. Another reason may be that speaking Konkani around different cultures may be rude and make others around feel that I am backbiting about them. However I do try and speak with very few people but only feel when it is really necessary, you could say I speak konglish which is a mixture of

English is my native language. Southern English is my dialect. I traveled all over the world, many times over and I have many observations on languages. I grew up in Northern California, son of father from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and a mother from Graceville, Florida. Though English was my natural language, but needless to say, I was surrounded by a large variety of dialects.