Joshua Rawls
Engl 1100_3c
Professor Young
Reading Response Questions
How to Tame a Wild Tongue
In the opening scene Anzaldua sets a tone and create a message that connects to the overall point of the essay. She does this by taking the complexity of dentistry and how her tongue automatically to the painful told the dentist is using. This relates to the identity within Anzaldua how she feels about who she is as a person and when people or anyone try to harm her like the painful dentist tools, her and her mind react to it. She knows that people want to undermine her race by teaching her to change her accent and language however, her "tongue" is too wild and valiant to be tamed. It is as if the scene in the beginning was to emphasis the fact that no matter how hard one will try you cannot overcome something you were born with henceforth.
Anzaldua used Spanish though her writing to kind of show the reader that she isn't going to change for the reader or for anyone. It made sense however. She did not use complex Spanish text which allowed any reader to somewhat understand what she is trying to say at any given time. I also think she did it to emphasize how Spanish people feel when Americans speak English and they don't understand. Personally it showed me that it is a big world out there and that to never make another culture or ethnicity appear as if it is more inferior than your own.
I feel as if English can't be dined as anything except English. Not standard nor nonstandard. I also believe that Chicano Spanish cannot be described as nonstandard either because it is what it is. Negro in Spanish is the color of black however in English it is a derogatory term, and in other languages it means other things. This does not make any language correct and it does not make them wrong. Society today has categorized things as right and wrong based of the identity and language. I think we can make the conclusion that society is judgmental and must make sure everything is the way they want it. Basically you can't speak Chicano Spanish/English because it's not correct according to everyone I assume.
The necessity of speaking and writing in Academic English is because it should be a part of your identity because one must be social with the language he was born with. One should be in perfect balance with his/her native language which makes it part of your identity. Academic English is needed to socialize and communicate with the most dominant language to this day.
In English there are many various types of English like slang, proper, improper, and there are specific way of speaking it in different states and countries. For example there is patois from Jamaican which is basically broken English with certain words added.
With my friends I have my own secret language and specific words and meanings. It's basically broken English spoken in a fast tempo with a lot of different words added.
Between me and my friends however I do happen to speak standard English and at times I would speak nonstandard English. When I talk to my family or people I respect like adults I speak proper English. The reason I do this because I respect my elders more than I respect my friends.
Usually the language you learn first or the language that runs through your culture is the one that runs through your blood. I am my language meaning me being born in America I am American. While someones language could be Spanish born in America but learned Spanish first. This makes them Spanish before they are American.
The introduction and the conclusion connect perfectly. When Anzaldua wrote of how the dentist said he needs to get rid of her tongue because basically it wasn't the way it should be. In the conclusion, Anzaldua explains that her race hasn't given her tongue and never will. In the beginning the doctor does not directly mean her language should be gotten rid of but her actual tongue. In the end Anzaldua used the word tongue to represent her culture and her heritage and how no one will make her get rid of it.
I feel the language I speak is completely apart on my identity. If a Spanish person born in a spanish country but does not speak Spanish but speaks Jamaican are they Jamaican or Spanish? They minus well be Jamaican because they don't even know their own heritage's language.
Identity s very important to me. Identity is what everyone needs. Without identity who are you? I believe Anzaldua does think Identity is important like when she says "When other races have given up their tongue, we've kept ours." This is her explaining how much she holds her race and herself close to her and how much she cares about her culture.