A way of understanding culture is to look at the language a culture use to communicate. Language and culture have an inseparable connection because one directly defines the other. In their respective essays, both Gloria Anzaldúa and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o write about the relationship between language and culture. The two authors recognize that foreigners use language as a tool to influence another culture for their own agenda. In Anzaldúa’s essay, “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” she emphasizes that native language brings to light one’s understanding of self and culture. Whereas, in “Decolonizing the Mind,” Thiong’o claims that adopting a foreign language further distances one’s culture and way of life. However, both Anzaldúa and Thiong’o are similar
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By believing what other cultures had to say about their language they turned against one another, thus leading her culture to fall apart. Similarly, in Thiong-o’s writing, he emphasizes the way the English colonists destroyed the Kenyan culture by turning the Kenyan people against one another, especially through children. “Thus children were turned into witch-hunters and in the process were being taught the lucrative value of being a traitor to one’s immediate community.” (Thiong’o 898). The children did not want to be punished for speaking their native language so they turned against one another. In doing so the native language was scarce and had a negative impact on the community. In both essays, Anzaldúa and Thiong’o report foreigners enforcing the English language to shape a new culture. When Anzaldúa spoke her own language in an educational environment she was punished from her Anglo teachers. “If you want to be American, speak ‘American.’ If you don’t like it, go back to Mexico where you belong.” (Anzaldúa 471) Anzaldúa’s teachers can be thought of as foreigners trying to enforce the English language onto her culture. The teachers punished her for speaking her native language. Anzaldúa suggests that the purpose
By believing what other cultures had to say about their language they turned against one another, thus leading her culture to fall apart. Similarly, in Thiong-o’s writing, he emphasizes the way the English colonists destroyed the Kenyan culture by turning the Kenyan people against one another, especially through children. “Thus children were turned into witch-hunters and in the process were being taught the lucrative value of being a traitor to one’s immediate community.” (Thiong’o 898). The children did not want to be punished for speaking their native language so they turned against one another. In doing so the native language was scarce and had a negative impact on the community. In both essays, Anzaldúa and Thiong’o report foreigners enforcing the English language to shape a new culture. When Anzaldúa spoke her own language in an educational environment she was punished from her Anglo teachers. “If you want to be American, speak ‘American.’ If you don’t like it, go back to Mexico where you belong.” (Anzaldúa 471) Anzaldúa’s teachers can be thought of as foreigners trying to enforce the English language onto her culture. The teachers punished her for speaking her native language. Anzaldúa suggests that the purpose