English 1100 3J
Prof. Young
Questions for Reading Response
- In the beginning, Anzaldua is in a dentist's chair getting her roots cleaned out. This connects to the overall point of "How to Tame a Wild Tongue", by introducing how her tongue being uncontrollable and wild. Which leads to asking questions to herself about how can you train the tongue to be quiet, bridle it, or saddle it.
- I believe her purpose of using Spanish in the passage is to show her language, or her languages that seem to make up everything she is a part of, and how there is a right to herself and others to be heard and their language itself to be demonstrated and not kept silent. Her Spanish use in the passage is very flowing though, being Hispanic I understood most of it, but there are some words I obviously had to use context clues for because I'm not Mexican. The normal Spanish in the passage was understood and she even took her time to translate it and elaborate on it. Her purpose was also to mention that her and other Chicanos' language isn't like other Latinos' language. It is different and deserves it's own category.
- Academic English and Spanish are categorized as standard in the passage. The reason being is because it is a formal type of English or Spanish, clean and uncut with no slang. Chicano Spanish is considered nonstandard because it was made after people emigrated from Mexico to America. It is a type of slang from actual Mexican Spanish which is why it would be considered nonstandard. This confused the writer because she thought the language she spoke was very unusual and she was insecure about it, just as other Chicanos were.
- Speaking and writing Academic English is a part of identity. This is not just for Hispanics but anyone who has immigrated from another country to the United States. Everyone has to learn English when they get here, because that's what "we came here for" and not knowing the main language of this country would not be proper because it is needed for education and further on in life. Therefore, it becomes a part of your identity as well as your first language.
- The only types of English I know is Spanglish which is used by Latinos, English slang which is used by many, the different types of accents that English has succumbed to: like the accent that people from west New York have, the people from the Southwest, and the English with Brooklyn accent.
- No, I don't use a secret language to communicate with certain people.
- When I talk with my friends, I tend to speak very ghetto-ish like because I was raised in Paterson and all the English they talk there is pretty much slang. When I talk with my family, I either talk Spanish but mostly Spanglish because the Spanish seems to fade away when you grow up and your parents understands more English. When I talk to my professors I choose to believe I talk proper English unlike how I would talk to familiar people.
- "I am my language," means that the language someones speaks makes a person who they are. It shows they're foreign, and it shows they're different from an American, as well as the way they were raised being from another country.
- The introduction and conclusion connect because they talk about how Mexicans have been through a lot with having to keep shut then to speaking out because they are now in 'America' and not in Mexico. Also how they've progressed about this and kept quiet about it for a long time and it shows their patience.
- The language I speak can definitely be a part of my identity because it shows I'm not just American, I'm Hispanic.
- Identity for me is very important but unlike Anzaldua, it is not with my language, but with my gender. In the passage by Anzaldua, she mentions, "The first time I heard two women, a Puerto Rican and a Cuban, say the word 'nosotras', I was shocked. I had not known the word existed. Chicanos use 'nosotros' whether male or female. We are robbed of our female being by the masculine plural, language is a male discourse". I was shocked to have heard Mexicans didn't use the words nosotras. It was surprising to see how this sounded misogynistic. My Spanish is like the Cubans and Puerto Ricans where we use nosotras, so it did sound interesting that they didn't use the female being in a plural noun. For me idenitity revolves around my gender than my language. I haven't came across any hardship with my language use but with gender, yes. For the reason I am female I'm expected to do certain things a way a woman is "supposed to do" but men don't have to aspire to the same things we do. I don't know why we are not treated the same as them even though we are smarter and stronger than men in more ways than one. Therefore, identity is very important for me because I choose to believe in the equality of the sexes and having that believe makes me who I am.
