In the essay “How To Tame A Wild Tongue” by Gloria Anzaldua the author touches upon issues like the division within and between languages and how an attack on her language is an attack on her as a human being. The author overcomes much adversity as she is not only prosecuted for her language by English speakers but by some people within her own culture.Her own mother had told her that without learning to speak English without an accent she would never be able to amount to anything worthwhile in this country. “ I Want you to speak English…….Que vale toda tu educación si todavía hablas ingles con un ‘accent’,”(Anzaldúa 35). Her mother truly believed in order to be a better person , a person with a future, she had to be “americanized.” Not only
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The main reason being, how can one expect the point of the essay to get across to its audience if the audience is incapable of understanding about 30% of what is being said. A concept Anzaldua had to have had some understanding of because she chose to translate certain words for example, “En boca cerrada no entran moscas. ‘Flies don’t enter a closed mouth’ is a saying i kept hearing as a child” (35). I believe Anzaldua included some translations because a lack of comprehension from the audience renders the essay almost obsolete. Unless, the reader is bilingual and understands both, but it is not realistic to write an essay and assume that only people that speak both languages, English and Spanish will read the …show more content…
It was a big “Forget you, I have learned a new language, a superior language.” It was almost as if I was ashamed to speak my language because everything was lined up to speak Creole the setting, the people, the respect aspect of the situation and I still chose to speak English. I of course had an alternative motive for speaking English than my mother had thought, but that is what it sounded like to my mother. Growing up under her wing I knew the last thing she would ever let happen was let me or anyone else in the family forget about our Cape Verdean roots. To her, picking English over Creole in an instance where I did not have to speak English was a sign of a threat to our culture. Reading Anzaldua 's words everything clicked. To purposely and willing change or be expected to change one 's way of speaking to accommodate to a scenario or to an audience where the favor is virtually never reciprocated, makes things appear although one language is superior to the other. As a bilingual or multicultural citizen the last thing one would want to do is undermine something that is a part of someone else’s life. It is like telling one 's self that they are not good enough, worthy enough for themselves. It is not only disrespectful but in a way
The main reason being, how can one expect the point of the essay to get across to its audience if the audience is incapable of understanding about 30% of what is being said. A concept Anzaldua had to have had some understanding of because she chose to translate certain words for example, “En boca cerrada no entran moscas. ‘Flies don’t enter a closed mouth’ is a saying i kept hearing as a child” (35). I believe Anzaldua included some translations because a lack of comprehension from the audience renders the essay almost obsolete. Unless, the reader is bilingual and understands both, but it is not realistic to write an essay and assume that only people that speak both languages, English and Spanish will read the …show more content…
It was a big “Forget you, I have learned a new language, a superior language.” It was almost as if I was ashamed to speak my language because everything was lined up to speak Creole the setting, the people, the respect aspect of the situation and I still chose to speak English. I of course had an alternative motive for speaking English than my mother had thought, but that is what it sounded like to my mother. Growing up under her wing I knew the last thing she would ever let happen was let me or anyone else in the family forget about our Cape Verdean roots. To her, picking English over Creole in an instance where I did not have to speak English was a sign of a threat to our culture. Reading Anzaldua 's words everything clicked. To purposely and willing change or be expected to change one 's way of speaking to accommodate to a scenario or to an audience where the favor is virtually never reciprocated, makes things appear although one language is superior to the other. As a bilingual or multicultural citizen the last thing one would want to do is undermine something that is a part of someone else’s life. It is like telling one 's self that they are not good enough, worthy enough for themselves. It is not only disrespectful but in a way