The Mother Tongue Rhetorical Analysis

Great Essays
Persuasion Pursuit: Viewpoints on Multicultural Communication What precisely is multicultural communication? It is a form of communication that consist of different languages and cultures. This nation is loaded with a huge number of multilingual people. A considerable lot of the people experience serious difficulties with multicultural communication in their homes, school, and other open settings. In these cases, a large number of the people whose first language is not English are judged on the grounds that they experience difficulty speaking with the individuals who communicate in English. In Amy Tan’s article, “The Mother Tongue”, she wrote how being bilingual can affect the individuals. Richard Rodriguez wrote “Aria A Memoir of a Bilingual …show more content…
Rodriguez struggled through a bilingual childhood and writes how he suffers through learning and adapting in two kinds of worlds. He wrote about his bilingual education by telling a few anecdotes of when he was growing up. He was the son of the Mexican immigrants whose main language was Spanish. At home, he would only speak Spanish until he had to go to school, where he was forced to learn English. He would feel different when he went to school. The teacher would pronounce his name like as “Rich-heard” and at that moment he no longer felt like Ricardo. When he would arrive home, he could hear his mother calling out in Spanish if he was home. Home, a place he felt secure and a place where he could belong. While Rodriguez may go to school and learn English, he was not learning the “public” language that he was supposed to use. One day, a few of his teachers came to his home to speak to his parents and explain to them if they could encourage their children to speak English at home. When they left, Rodriguez’s parents told their children to speak English only. As time passed, Rodriguez learned to speak perfect English up to the point where he no longer spoke Spanish anymore. Rodriguez argues that while he was learning the “public” language, he felt like he lost the intimacy he had with his family. Rodriguez spoke few Spanish …show more content…
In Amy Tan 's article, "The Mother Tongue", she composed how being bilingual can influence the people. Richard Rodriguez composed "Aria A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood" which he contends that bilingual instruction can influence how the individual feels about where they have a place and the sentiment being secure. In the article "Peoples Like Us", David Brooks contends that in spite of the fact that there is obviously diversity in the nation, individuals truly don 't respect arranged qualities like we appear to do. All of these articles persuade how people should act with multilingual individuals and how to communicate with them. Out of all these essays, Tan made her point in the best

Related Documents

  • Decent Essays

    Rodriguez "Aria" Rhetorical Analysis In Rodriguez essay Aria Memoir of a bilingual childhood describes a young boy named Rodriguez only able to speak Spanish which is referred as a private language throughout the essay and English being the public language. Rodriguez not being able to speak English made him an outcast from society. He only felt like himself only at home with his family that shared the same scenario as him. Rodriguez till this day would still be speaking Spanish if it wasn't for his teachers bringing their concerns to his parents that he will not succeed in his education unless he was taught English.…

    • 428 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    After overcoming his family’s language, Rodriguez no longer feared sounds. The language thats once seemed hard to distinguish and understand,…

    • 290 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    His father, Alfonso, was a principal in Mexico and his mother Maria Estela was the school secretary. His parents couldn't find a steady job to keep in the U.S, so that caused him and his family to move a lot due to the parents' instability. His mother seems to always find a place for them to stay or rest for a while. Rodriguez gives an example of when his mother found an empty bench at a park for them to sit and rest for a while until a Caucasian woman with her children came by and told his mother to remove herself and then tells her that this isn't her country and to go back to her home. As a child, Rodriguez felt discriminated and discouraged because of his ethnicity by the way he and his family were being treated; in his elementary year he was brushed aside for speaking Spanish and restrictions were set in schools such as they are not to be Mexican and to not even be a Spanish speaker.…

    • 1595 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Literacy In Literature

    • 1293 Words
    • 5 Pages

    “I just felt dumb. And dumb was how the kids treated me. They’d make fun of me every chance they got,” (Raymond 5). Richard Rodriguez had a difficulty in reading because he came from a bilingual family. His parents read and wrote in both English and Spanish but only used the English language for necessities like letters, recipes, newspapers, and etcetera.…

    • 1293 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Aria Rodriguez Thesis

    • 948 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Rodriguez’s essay, Aria, shares his experience of growing up bilingual, and what it was like to go to an American school after speaking only Spanish for his entire life. He wanted people to understand and connect to his life story, which I did because I also grew up bilingual. I wanted to share the transition I went through from my elementary school years, which was tough, to my life right now because both experiences are interconnected. Both Rodriguez and I used antithesis, first person pronouns, and diction to convey the struggle that our younger selves went through and how it connects to our current perception of school and society.…

    • 948 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Richard Rodriguez

    • 1405 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The most important value is on the status of being a minority, of which he no longer considered himself to be. Officially, what does it mean to be a minority but to be part a small group of people within a community or country, differing from the main population in race, religion, language, or political persuasion? This is clearly then not what Richard Rodriguez sees as being a minority but is instead those that do not mature into the public world and continue to speak in their private tongue. In the United States the public language and identity lies with English while his private language- the language of comfort and family is as he states ghetto Spanish. This establishes the basis for his argument against bilingual education, teaching in both English and the native tongue of Latinos,…

    • 1405 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Special to on another. Listen!"(Text.pg.517.) The bonding that was taking place at this point in his autobiography entitled "Hunger of Memory" would have never been meaningful, if they were speaking in broken English to on another. The way of the Spanish culture is family oriented that we see it take place right in front of our face. It is not uncommon to see Mexican or Cuban immigrants attempting to make a better life for them-selves even risking certain death to become American citizens.…

    • 1356 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Universally, bilingualism is know as the speaking of two or more languages fluently. However, bilingualism has a far deeper meaning. I believe that bilingualism is the combination of two or more cultures and their languages into one’s life, and that it is the ability to communicate with a variety of people, not just people from one’s own countries. Throughout their essays, essayists Rodriguez and Espada develop different definitions of bilingualism.…

    • 1134 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Rhetorical Analysis: Positivity of Bilingual Education Bilingual education has positively affected foreign children with their overall lives. Kenneth Jost’s, Harvard College and Georgetown University Law Center alumni, article, “Bilingual Education vs. English Immersion” is about the positive significance of bilingual education in public schools. Jeff Bale’s, a language education professor at Michigan State University, article, “Bilingual Education is the Best Approach for English Language Learners” also explains why this type of education is effective for foreign students. Together, both of these authors provide an effective argument with the use of reasoning, credibility, and emotion, but also include logical fallacies. Jost’s and Bale’s…

    • 827 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Ricardo describes his childhood as a child of Mexican immigrant parents studying in an English school in America, where he had problems in communicating at school because he did not know the “public language”, English. At first, he was shy and timid at school because he was feeling uncomfortable with English, but with his parents’ and teacher’s help he “raised his hand to volunteer an answer”, from that day he “moved very far from the disadvantaged child”(288). He then started feeling as an American citizen. Although Rodriguez admits that he lost the strong intimacy at home with his parents, he emphasizes that the “loss implies the gain”(291).…

    • 1299 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The United States has rapidly conformed into a multiracial society. Bilingual individuals come to America in hopes to find equal rights and freedom and face discrimination by Americans. American values are forced upon these people and according to Tan and Anzaldua, a certain way of life is expected of them. The struggle of “fitting in” and accepting the cultural background is a major point in both essays, Mother Tongue by Amy Tan and How to Tame a Wild Tongue by Gloria Anzaldua. Their experiences with the discrimination in the United States have given them they reason to stand against social inequality.…

    • 840 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Rodriguez properly targets his audience through the use of constant examples of people not being able to understand their heritage blending with their American culture. Within the essay Rodriguez explains that a boy named Michael was taught speak up and to stand straight. When that child went home and talked with his Chinese father, he was ridiculed because of his American ways. The targeted audience is towards those who do not understand how life in America is shaped by culture, as well as those who want a deeper explanation about American culture. The essay is written from the point of view of a Mexican American author, Richard Rodriguez.…

    • 1074 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “Aria” by Richard Rodriguez is an essay that shows the readers a part of life that many have never experienced. Rodriguez uses this essay to show how he fights through his childhood tounderstand English. He faces society while forfeiting his happy home life trying to become a typical English-speaking student. He establishes a connection with the audience through his personal experience as a child. He uses imagery and narration to clarify his opposition to bilingual education .Rodriguez…

    • 758 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    During this essay, I will be discussing the differences between Gloria Anzaldua’s, “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” and Richard Rodriguez’s, “ Aria”, as well as the similarities, to determine which one is a personal preference as an acceptable debate. Firstly, let’s go over the key details in each reading, starting with Gloria Arizaldua’s “ How to Tame a Wild Tongue.” This reading sort of threw me off in the beginning, but as you slowly and carefully read through it you gain its sense of purpose.…

    • 1176 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    Richard Rodriguez believes that the Americanization of a bilingual child will result in their public gain. “Aria” by Richard Rodriguez is a heart-wrenching piece of writing about the full Americanization of Rodriguez resulting in his native language of Spanish being forgotten and the full submersion into the English language. Many of the events Rodriguez faced in his life are present to many other bilingual students’ today. These events that bilingual students’ are facing will strongly influence their decision on struggling to learn two languages at a young age, stalling the development of one of their languages, or being forced to choose one language or the other in a full assimilation. Rodriguez’s viewpoint is that if you want to make a full…

    • 1373 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays