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Language development theoretical development
Language development introduction
Language development introduction
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Losing a culture can happen within a family based off of where an individual was raised. Both of my parents were born and raised in Mexico; their Mexican parents taught them the culture and their native tongue. Although I was raised in the United States, my parents always taught me to embrace my culture and to no be ashamed of my native tongue. Having two Mexican parents helped me distinguish my Mexican culture from the American culture. However, my mother’s youngest sister was raised in the United States. Her Mexican parents raised her, but assimilation made a shift in her cultural views. She did not embrace her Mexican culture as her older siblings did; this also impacted her children. My cousins do not speak any Spanish because they do not …show more content…
They are forced to forget their language in order to speak English and conform to society’s ideas. Assimilation is when people are forced to adapt and adjust to culture’s beliefs and views while they diminish their own culture. In her essay, “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” Gloria Anzaldúa, she discusses the issues of assimilation in the United States for Chicanos, a Latino born or raised in the United States who believes they cannot be characterized as Latino or American. Anzaldúa explains that since Chicanos are in the United States they should only speak English. She also brings up that in order to combat assimilation Chicanos in the United States developed their own language because they can no longer be Latino or American. But Chicanos are taught by other Spanish speaker, native Latinos, that their language is improper and poor Spanish. The Chicano language is a language Chicanos created which includes terms that are considered slang in Spanish while they incorporate English terms. Chicanos and Latinos are taught to silence their culture and their tongue to fit into society. However, she goes on to justify that their Chicano language is a part of them and their culture and without it they do not have an identity. People of color are often stereotyped because of their cultural background or the way they speak which leads an individual to be ashamed of who they are and where they come from; they are forced to assimilate into the American society which results in the loss of their culture as well as their
Have you ever felt like you didn’t belong somewhere? Do you know what it feels like to be told you don’t belong in the place of your birth? People experience this quite frequently, because they may not be the stereotypical American citizen, and are told and convinced they don’t belong in the only place they see as home. In Gloria Anzaldúa’s “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, Anzaldúa gives the reader an inside look at the struggles of an American citizen who experiences this in their life, due to their heritage. She uses rhetorical appeals to help get her messages across on the subliminal level and show her perspective’s importance. These rhetorical appeals deal with the emotion, logic and credibility of the statements made by the author. Anzaldúa
In Gloria Anzaldúa’s “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, an excerpt from her book Borderlands/La Fronter in 1987, she demonstrates that identity can be asserted through language. You can tell a lot about a person by their language. Language is your way of representing who you are as a person, and most importantly, your culture. Culture defines the most about a person. Anzaldúa shares her aggravation of not being able to speak her language, “until I can take pride in my language, I cannot take pride in myself" (Anzaldúa 378). Being seen as an individual of English as Second Language (ESL), Anzaldúa does not appreciate how she has to assist in translating to English or Spanish, where she would rather speak Spanglish. “[A]s long as I have to accommodate the English speaker rather than having them accommodate me, my tongue will be illegitimate” (Anzaldúa 378). Talking bad about her language severely impacts her identity, “I am my language” (Anzaldúa 378). A person’s identity should not be seen less because of the language they speak. Anzaldúa states that she will have her voice, though she cannot express her passion for her language with the restraint of no freedom act to embrace it, she will. Her audiences that she is reaching to are those who share the same struggle of their identities just like her, and also speaking out to people who do look down upon people like her because of where she is form and what language she speaks.
America is a presumptuous country; its citizens don’t feel like learning any other language, so they make everyone else learn English. White Americans are the average human being and act as the standard of living, acting, and nearly all aspects of life. In her essay “White Privilege: The Invisible Knapsack,” Peggy McIntosh talks about how being white has never been discussed as a race/culture before because that identity has been pushed on everyone else, and being white subsequently carries its own set of advantages. Gloria Anzaldua is a Chicana, a person of mixed identities. In an excerpt titled “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” she discusses how the languages she speaks identify who she is in certain situations and how, throughout her life, she has been pushed to speak and act more “American” like.
As a child Anzaldua remembers being caught speaking Spanish, and being punished for that reason. In college Anzaldua and other Chicanos were required to take speech classes. Their purpose: to get rid of the accent that followed the Chicanos and other Hispanic-Mexican kids around. Anzaldua took pride in her language which was neither Spanish nor English, instead it was a mix of both. Meanwhile to be considered American you had to speak English as if it were your first language. And if you didn’t like it, you could jut go back to Mexico where you belonged. One fear is that Spanish as a language will be lost by the end of this century. Since French classes are going to be encouraged
Another struggle for identity with Latinos is their struggle with the Spanish and English languages. While some Latinos may speak Spanish in their homes, the language may not be conversationally used in their schools. Some Lat...
Anzaldúa's main point in the essay “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” is that Language is important and part of who we are. People should not be forced to speak another langue or criticized for speaking their own language. Anzaldúa says “So if you want to hurt me, talk badly about my language. Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity - I am my language”. (pp.416) Language defines who we are. and when we are forced to change out language we are forced to change who we are.
Gloria Anzaldua, wrote the essay “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” communicating and describing her adolescence in a society brimming with sexism, cultural imperialism, racism, low self-esteem, and identity formation. The reason one comes to America is to finer themselves academically, and intellectually. One must learn to speak English to live among the American’s, because that is the language they speak. Though, no one has the right to deprive you of your familiar tongue. At a young age, Anzaldua was scolded, even mistreated for speaking her native “Chicano” tongue. Anzaldúa described this ignorance, cruelty, and discrimination when she states: “I remember being caught speaking Spanish at recess – that was good for three licks on the knuckles with a sharp ruler.” She overcomes this hostility throughout her life.
Elements of minority cultures are continually hijacked, re-invented and commercialized until the origin and cultural significance becomes unknown to its consumers. Notably, languages and dialects such as Spanish and African American Vernacular English, often crossover into popular culture and mainstream media. In Jane H. Hill text, “Language, Race, and White Public Space,” Hill points to the appropriation of Spanish by Whites through the usage of “Mock Spanish,” a mix between English and Spanish. According to Hill, Mock Spanish is harmful because it reduces Spanish to a colloquialism and reproduces stereotypes that construct “white public spaces” in which it is only acceptable for white people to use Spanish. In the same way that Mock Spanish is a “racist discourse,” the crossover of African American Vernacular English into popular culture is pervasive and dangerous because it erases the voices of black people and belittles the cultural significance of African American Vernacular English in Black
Although our society is slowly developing a more accepting attitude toward differences, several minority groups continue to suffer from cultural oppression. In her essay “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” Gloria Anzaldúa explores the challenges encountered by these groups. She especially focuses on her people, the Chicanos, and describes the difficulties she faced because of her cultural background. She argues that for many years, the dominant American culture has silenced their language. By forcing them to speak English and attempting to get rid of their accents, the Americans have robbed the Chicanos of their identity. She also addresses the issue of low self-esteem that arises from this process of acculturation. Growing up in the United States,
Anzaldua grew up in the United States but spoke mostly Spanish, however, her essay discusses how the elements of language began to define her identity and culture. She was living in an English speaking environment, but was not White. She describes the difficulty of straddling the delicate changing language of Chicano Spanish. Chicano Spanish can even differ from state to state; these variations as well as and the whole Chicano language, is considered a lesser form of Spanish, which is where Anzaldua has a problem. The language a person speaks is a part...
This model examines the relationship between the dominant culture and one with minority status, such as Latinos. Attitudes towards self, same minority group, different minority groups, and the dominant group are examined through five stages within the model. These include conformity, dissonance, resistance and immersion, introspection, and integrative awareness. The stage most pertinent to Antonio at this time is the Dissonance stage. During this stage, one starts to acknowledge the existence of racism, that he cannot escape his own heritage, and experiences conflict between shame and pride felt for his culture. This same shame versus pride conflict is also extended to members of his own minority group. Held stereotypes about other minority groups are now questioned as well. One in the Dissonance stage is also starting to realize that not all beliefs held by the dominant group are valuable or even accurate (Sue & Sue, 2003). Because of the two incidents Antonio endured during his freshman year and their emotional impact on him, he is becoming aware that even though he has “assimilated,” others of the majority group will still identify him as different. Antonio is also experiencing conflict between what members of the minority group (his parents) and the majority group feel are important; his parents believe he
According to Anzaldua, “ Chicano Spanish is considered by the purist and by most Latinos deficient, a mutilation of Spanish”(Anzaldua 32). The Chicano Spanish versus Spanish conflict that occurs in Latino society is a prime example of people considering themselves to be right in a situation where there is not a right answer. The Latino’s who speak Spanish that they believe to be normal are disturbed by the Spanish language changing. They believe that their own views are being challenged, they believe that they are correct, and they believe that anyone who challenges their views is inferior. The people who view all other views are, in reality, just trying to make themselves look more powerful. Like in Tan’s essay, people demeaned others in order to promote their own views, therefore, gaining power over the others who they demeaned. According to Tan, “ She said they would not give her any more information(...) And when the doctor finally called her daughter, me, who spoke in perfect english-- lo and behold-- we had assurances the CAT scan would be found”(Tan 2). The doctors treated Tan’s mother differently due to her use of what they considered “broken language”, leading to her being treated inadequately. People have an image of what they consider to be the right English, anyone who does not speak the right English is usually considered to be uneducated. In both Tan’s and Anzaldua’s essays, the lack of open-mindedness is one of the reasons that people want to become more powerful than others. People fail to realize that what they believe in is not always the right answer, like with stereotypes, the people are trying to gain power over others in order to make themselves seem more
In this summary the author Tanya Barrientos is explaining how hard it is be different. In the beginning of the summary Barrientos explained how people automatically assume that she is Latina. She grew up in an English-speaking world. Her parents are born and raised in Guatemala but she moved to the United States at the age of three. When her parents came to the United States of America they stopped speaking English immediately. Her parents wanted her to read, talk, and write only in English. She felt like she was the only one who needed to learn how to speak Latino, even though she looks like she can already. In the summary she went on saying that she was trying to fit in and become a regular person so other Latinas won’t judge her. All she
293), which can be used to assert one’s identity either socially or as an individual. Identity issues may arise in language brokering as brokers may attempt to identify as both American and Latino/a (Orellana, 2009). Thus, language brokers are expected to attend to the goal of acting Latino/a when talking to their mother in order to identity with and please their mother. Additionally, brokers may be cognizant of acting American with the English-speaker. Language brokers may want to accommodate to the English-speaker by identifying as members of the same group who speak the same language. Children may feel more comfortable if they think that their interaction with the English-speaker is between two members of an “in-group” rather than being seen as a member of the
The essay “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” by Gloria Anzaldua is relevant to today’s society, because it brings to discussion important social issues such acculturation, racism, and sexism. A major social event that she lived through and was an advocate of was the Chicano movement, which influenced her in her writing. This essay is not only written solely using her intelligence and research, it also comes from personal experience. Furthermore, she says that she will not be silenced anymore, that all people deserve the right to freedom of speech and the freedom to their culture. Not to have to submit to the dominant cultures found here in the United States. This essay is directed towards two groups