The Story of My Life

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

“Her language, as I hear it, vivid, direct, full of observation and imagery. That was the language that helped shape the way I saw things, expressed things, made sense of the world” (7). The author talked about her personal experiences with the different kinds of English. She talked about how her

Through all the readings that she had possessed she had become, what was the start of, an independent woman. The fact that she continued to read to further her knowledge and to learn more did not faze her that not many other women were doing as she was. At a young age she knew that “settling” with the roles of women during this time was a life that she had to choose but she also wanted more. She wanted to educate herself and that she did through the works of her favorite author’s books and poems.

Time and time again, Tan’s mother’s inability to speak proper English is seen by standard English speakers as a sign that she is unintelligent; they believe that the way she speaks is wrong and therefore the things she has to say are not important. This belief is so pervasive that as a teen, Tan herself used to believe that her mother was not smart because of how she spoke. Because Tan’s mother’s speech did not follow the rules of traditional English, Tan “believed that her [mother’s] English reflected the quality of what she had to say. That is, because she expressed them imperfectly, her thoughts were imperfect” (146). Because Tan’s mother speaks in ways that are described as “broken” and “limited”, as a teen Tan felt her mother’s language indicated that her mom was simple minded. However, as Tan grew up, she came to appreciate the beauty and intellect behind her mother’s words. While Tan’s friends comment that they cannot understand a majority of what Tan’s mother says, Tan hears her mother’s speech as “perfectly clear, perfectly natural”, and remarks that “her language, as [she] hear[s] it, is vivid, direct, full of observations and imagery” (146). Tan’s friends seem to hear Tan’s mother’s speech on a surface level; since they cannot understand what she is trying to say, they cannot understand how rich her language is. Just because Tan’s friends do not understand her mother, it does not make the intricacies of how she speaks any less unique. The tendency of standard 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.

During our lives, serval blissful, traumatic, culture event that established the transformations during cognitive, social, physical, and characteristic changes in our lives from the time of birth through our death. A person’s existence is shaped and molded by the experiences that have set us physically and mentality. The interview conducted for this project for an understanding of, Mrs. Candi Jones, is a mother, daughter, and sister. She was the middle child of in a physically disable household where father and sister hearing-impaired; a mother who is deaf. They are a mixture of a sibling through birth, adoption, and foster. During the interview with Ms. Jones, she discusses experienced numerous events in her life that play a major influenced

During her educational and personal life she had developed a love for learning and literature at an early age in a household that encouraged reading. She had been honored as a Presidential Scholar, being ranked at the top 100 high school student in the high school, and as a National Merit Scholar attended Ohio’s Miam University, graqduating 1973 summa cum laude. She studied abroad in Germany before returning to the states and earning her M.F.A. from the University of Iowa.

Everyone has a story and a past that makes them the person they are today. For Margaret Peterson her love for reading began as a young child. She grew up in a time where electronics and technology wasn't as big as it is today. For her entertainment and hobby she would spend hours reading, at home, in the car, and even on vacation. She lived in a densely populated area. Her father was a farmer, like most men in the community. Her mom was a nurse along with lots of the women in their area. Growing up she did not experience much city life, mainly farm life. However, she knew and believed there was another side of life and opportunities besides what she was around and what her parents had chosen to do with their life. Like many high schoolers who

"ANNIE 'S ARRIVAL, HELEN 'S REBIRTH, ANNIE 'S SACRIFICES." THE NURTURING SIDE OF ANNIE SULLIVAN & HELEN KELLER. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 May 2013. http://webpage.pace.edu/nreagin/tempmotherhood/spring02j/page2.htm

Helen Keller, who was born on June 27th, 1880 and died June 1st, 1968, was one of the most important people of her time. She accomplished so much in fields such as literature and politics. The fact that she was able to do so much with her life is impressive not only in the fact that she was a woman, but more impressive due to the fact that she became blind and deaf at only eighteen months old. Through the help of Anne Sullivan though, Keller, was able to learn so much. This short story, “The Day Language Came into My Life,” is an excerpt from her autobiography, where she recalls her memories from when she first learned about language. In her story, Keller, uses a unique metaphor to describe what it was like going from no language to having a language. She does this by comparing herself to a boat in a dense fog with no compass or sounding-line, who was just lost at sea in a tangible darkness, and then the “light” came into her world. This light that meant so much to Keller was the love of her teacher, Anne Sullivan.

The very first note I hastily scribbled into a page of Autobiography of a Face was the question, “Why emphasize language?” From a very early point in the memoir, I was enamored by the construction of each sentence, by the semi-poetic nature of the story and the impeccably profound statements being made. While the memoir seems on the surface to be the struggle of a sick child, the language the author uses complicates our perception of Grealy’s intentions. The story has barely begun to develop when Grealy states, “Language supplies us with ways to express ever subtler levels of meaning, but does that imply language gives meaning… ?” (44) Once this statement passed beneath my eyes I began to read this memoir very differently than I had originally planned.

She claims that language is defined by experiences and that the power of language lies within the person’s connotative view of certain words. Concerning her linguistic identity, Tan writes “I spend a great deal of my time thinking about the power of language…. All the Englishes I grew up with”. She is aware that language is different for everyone including herself and has the power to affect other people differently. She refers to the multiple Englishes she knew growing up which is important because it demonstrates that her experiences with them played a role in her language development.

Although the narrator’s parents are keeping him from learning or speaking their native languages, which is what most of his family members speak, in order to stabilize his English proficiency, there are many negative effects of doing so. The narrator constantly feels

As Tan was growing up, the speech she used in her family environment affected her results on various tests at school. Many other Asian Americans had this similar problem, and had teachers "who are steering them away from writing and into math and science, which is what happened to me(Tan)."(Tan 64) This is because Math has only one correct answer, whereas English was a "matter of opinion and personal experience."(Tan 63) As a result of this, Tan drove herself to disprove others assumptions and became an English major. She wrote in a way to prove her "mastery" over the English language. An example she gives is this line, edited from the final version of her book, "'That was my mental quandary in its nascent state.'"(Tan 65) This is the type of language she uses in her professional life. Her words are "filled with carefully wrought grammatical phrases...all the forms of standard English that (she) had learned in school and through books."(Tan 61) Without realizing it at first, Tan widened the gap between her professional community and her private family

People don’t realize the sad truth that I’ve been holding on for and secretly suffering with most of my life. People seem to see me as a girl that is naturally bubbly, happy, and outgoing. This was a way for me to hide my real emotions in the time when my depression and anxiety were major factors impacting my self-esteem, just a couple of years ago. So, yes, I admit it -- I was a victim of depression and anxiety. My anxiety has been occurring ever since I was a toddler. My usual anxious behavior would be when I would easily get nervous, wouldn’t talk that well in order to be understood, would go through emotional meltdowns at times, and so forth. My depression however, seem to connect a lot with my anxiety because of my meltdowns and it would easily bring my self-esteem down. One interesting fact about my depression is that it got extreme when I was in middle school. Many events in that time of my life made me feel absolutely worthless inside.