Gloria Anzaldúa

Gloria Anzaldua, author of the article " How to tame a Wild Tongue", expresses very strong views on how she feels her native Chicano Spanish language needs to be preserved in order to maintain cultural unity when used as a private form of communication. Her statement, " for a people who cannot identify with either standard (formal, Castilian) Spanish, nor standard English, what recourse is left to them but to create their own language?" suggests that despite the societal pressures of needing to learn more formal and ‘properly' accepted English and Spanish, the very nature of the Chicano language is a unique creation of acceptance, through language within the Mexican culture. She is opposed to assimilation on

Barrientos starts with sharing her embarrassment to sign up for Spanish classes—the language used by her parents to communicate. Society’s expectation on her fluency of Spanish based on her Latina appearance causes self-questioning: where do I fit in? However, Barrientos initially refused to face her ethnicity as a Latina, beginning at a young age. The poor reputation on Spanish Americans causes Barrientos to isolate herself from the stereotype, by speaking English instead of Spanish. However, society changed: different

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.

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

The rhetorical situation of Gloria Anzaldua’s, “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” from her book Borderlands/La Frontera, is the most important piece to her argument. A writer’s rhetorical situation is the use of the elements of the rhetor, audience, text, medium, context and exigence. Through the correct use of these pieces, a writer is able to greatly strengthen their argument and persuasive abilities. In her passage, Gloria Anzaldua is speaking to the unfair and unjust treatment of Spanish speaking children growing up in the United States educational system. These are not just kids who have moved here from a Spanish speaking country, but even those born in the United States that grew up speaking Spanish because of their family’s culture. Through her writing she wants to bring this into light to induce change and help children of the future be able to learn in an environment where they are also able to comfortable speak their own language. She is not looking for them to be able to speak their own language in an American school just because she wants to be difficult. In her eyes, your language is part of your identity of self. And without your language, you are also losing part of yourself. Again, she expresses and increases the persuasiveness of these ideas through the use of her rhetorical situation, which includes the rhetor, audience, text, medium, context and exigence.

Activist, Gloria Anzaldua’s narrative excerpt “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” She goes into depth of ethnic identity, while knocking down walls of linguistic and identity down. How one would identify themselves while broadcasting the struggles any person with culture has felt. She uses ethos, pathos, and logos alongside all five senses. Making the reader feel as though they witness the struggles she went through if not witness then actually experienced. Anzaldua’s thesis is that language is a part of one’s identity. It is what makes a person who they and connects them to their roots. People shouldn't let others try to tame their tongue or cut off their native language; because once they do and are given that power they can disconnect the person from their culture and roots.

“How to Tame a Wild Tongue” is published in Borderlands/La Frontera: The New MEstiza (1987), by Gloria Anzaldua and “the book talks about how she is concerned with many kinds of borders--between nations, cultures, classes, genders, and languages.” Anzaldua gives many examples of how she felt when being classified as a Chicana. Her thesis in this is that she is “arguing for the ways in which identity is intertwined with the way we speak and for

The passage How to Tame a Wild Tongue by Gloria Anzaldua exposes the difficulties that many ethnicities of immigrants are exposed to, when they recently migrate to the United States. Gloria Anzaldua stands up for the minorities who are underrepresented, as well as talks of her own personal experiences. Anzaldua does not let linguistic terrorism be a negative influence, resulting in her own language being robbed from her, and pridefully speaks the language, regardless of the situation that she is presented with.

The Mayan languages of Guatemala and Mexico can be called a “linguistic area” (Study Guide, 2014, p. 102) because they are geographically in close proximity and the “languages” of the speech communities there would “have been spoken side by side for many generations” (ibid). Due to long-term contact between speech communities in this linguistic area, bilingualism and language mixing in the speeches of the close-knit natives are sure to have existed due to demographic movements. (Winford, 2003, p. 19). However, when language contact involves foreign and native languages, communicating in a common language becomes an issue. Therefore, to overcome language barriers, lexical items are borrowed from the former into

I agree with your interpretation of Anzaldua’s quote “So, if you want to really hurt me, take badly about my language”. Since she makes it clear that ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity, therefore she can not take pride in herself, until she takes pride in her language. Thus, how are you supposed to know your true identity, if you are forced to change the way you express yourself.

An American writer of Chicana cultural theory, Gloria Anzaldúa, in “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” asserts that language is intertwined with identity. She supports her claim by first using an allegory with imagery of a dentist visit in order to showcase the struggle of having a “unconventional” accent, then uses emotional appeal to reveal the Chicanx community’s insecurities about their language in order for the audience to have a personal understanding of their struggles, and finally utilizes a simile as a call to action for the Chicanx community to unite and take pride in their culture. Anzaldúa’s purpose is to emphasize how people should not be ashamed of their native tongue in order to encourage people to take pride in their cultural identity.

One thing that stands out to me about this article is the way Anzaldúa expresses her frustration with not being fully able to speak her language in her writing. She claims that, “as long as

Anzaldua wishes to be able to speak freely in Chicano Spanish and to have her and her people’s language and culture respected wherever she is

The father of modern linguistics, Edward Sapir, characterized language as “purely human and non-instinctive”, for unlike our innate ability to walk, such a hominid mechanism of complex thought-expression is a learned skill achieved through culture. This exclusively human ability is essential to one’s core identity, as explored by Chicana cultural theorist Gloria Anzaldua in How to Tame a Wild Tongue, in which she recalls being rejected for her native bilingual tongue by native Mexicans and White Americans, unable to fit in with either culture. Here, we see that language is a unique expression of identity -- adaptive and Taoist in its nature in that tone, diction, vocabulary, and dialect are manifestations of one’s emotions, personality,

Language is the defining aspect of person’s culture and identity. In the essay, “How to tame a wild tongue” by Gloria Anzaldua and from the “Mother Tongue” by Amy tan, both reading conveys the importance of culture in society and it is possible to suffer If we can’t use it properly, however anzaldua was far more confidence about her language but Amy tan was depressed about her language impacted on her life experiences.