What does the way a person speaks tell us about the person?
‘Unrelated Incidents’ by Tom Leonard and ‘Search for my Tongue’ by
Sujata Bhatt are two poems that give people an incite into how a
person is perceived by others, by the way that they speak. ‘Unrelated
Incidents’ is about how the BBC newsreaders all talking in Standard
English and will not have a Scottish person reading the news because
the viewers will not understand there accent, Tom Leonard views this
as discrimination and shows his dislike to this attitude in his poem.
‘Search for my Tongue’ is about Sujata Bhatt’s personal experiences
with learning another language and having to speak in a foreign tongue
and forgetting about the mother tongue which is the original language.
When Sujata thinks that she has finally lost her mother tongue she
starts to hear it again in her dreams.
The layout of the poem ‘Unrelated Incidents’ is set out in an unusual
way because of the poem talking about the BBC newsreaders. When the
newsreaders reads out the news they read it off of autocue and this is
how the poem is set out. When first looking at ‘Unrelated Incidents’
it is difficult to read because of the spellings of the words. The
poem is written phonetically and not in Standard English. Tom Leonard
says in line 27-30 ‘this is me token yir right way a spellin.’ Leonard
also uses colloquial which is slang he uses it in the last line with
‘belt up’ he does this to mock the way the news is read because of the
poem being written as if it were the six clock news.
This is different to ‘Search for my Tongue’ because Sujata Bhatt for
15 lines writes in English but then from line 16-29 writes in Gujarati
which is her mother language, beneath this it also tells the reader
how to read this language (which is spelt phonetically). The lines
written in Gujarati is actually the first part of the poem written
again and when you read it the first part sounds harsh and not very
nice to read but when you read it for a second time in Gujarati it
flows and is nice to read.
In ‘Unrelated Incidents’ and ‘Search for my Tongue’ they either are
cross or upset with themselves or with others around them. In the poem
‘Unrelated Incidents’ the Scottish man is angry for being rejected by
the BBC just because of the way that he talks and because of his
accent and in ‘Search for my Tongue’ she is upset with herself for not
In the novel All The Shah’s Men we are introduced to Iran, and the many struggles and hardships associated with the history of this troubled country. The Iranian coup is discussed in depth throughout the novel, and whether the Untied States made the right decision to enter into Iran and provide assistance with the British. If I were to travel back to 1952 and take a position in the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) for the sole purpose of examining the American Foreign Intelligence, I would have to conclude that the United States should have examined their options more thoroughly, and decided not to intervene with Iran and Mossadegh. I have taken this position after great analysis, which is something that Eisenhower and his staff never did. By discussing the history of Iran, the Anglo-Iranian oil company, and Document NSC-68 I will try to prove once and for all that going through with the coup in Iran was a terrible mistake made by the United States.
Ta- Nehisi Coates lives in New York with his wife and son. He is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and received the George Polk Award for his cover story, “The Case for Reparations” in The Atlantic. He also received the National Magazine Award, the Hillman Prize for Opinion and Analysis Journalism. Coates is the author of the memoir The Beautiful Struggle and Between the World and Me.
“The Love of My Life,” by T.C. Boyle, tells a love story about a teen couple who has to go on separate ways to attend college. Earlier, they go on a camping trip and have unprotected sex. China finds out she is pregnant and tells Jeremy about it. Jeremy tells China to terminate her pregnancy, but China refuses to see a doctor and lets her pregnancy advance. She ends having her baby in a motel room without any medical assistance; just with Jeremy’s help she delivers her baby. The couple decides to dump the baby in a dumpster, and later they get arrested for their crime.
Throughout time the flexibility of different languages within the world today are always being tossed up in the air, if there’s disadvantages or advantages to being capable of more than one language. Although all individuals have there own opinions on being able to speak fluently with different languages, there isn’t any other way to see it besides it being a huge advantage; fully appreciating the beneficial chance to be bilingual or trilingual and sometimes even more. Communicating with more than a single voice will represent who one is and where they came from. Within two articles “Speaking in Tongues” written by Zadie Smith and “How to tame a Wild Tongue” by Gloria Anzalduas’s both demonstrate the different languages they encounter. Smith looses her chance in speaking from her voice being forced upon to change without resistance while Anzalduas’s aggressively puts up a battle to be able to keep her voice. The acceptance of varies languages isn’t in everyone category, however in time we should be more accepting and realize from articles like such that’s beneficial to learn and accept the difference languages of different cultures within the world today. Although there may be struggles upon learning the knowledge to something new, its nothing but an advantage to have with one throughout a lifetime!
The book “Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” by Sherman Alexie and the movie “Finding Forrester” are hilarious stories in their own profane ways. In this essay i will be talking about the different themes of the two stories and how they are similar.
In Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast, Generous Orthodoxy, he explains what generous orthodoxy is. The generous part of generous orthodoxy amounts to being open to making changes and seeing change as positive, and the orthodoxy points to a more traditional stance on values. Combined, these two concepts are ironic, because generally traditions aren’t changed easily, and the changes made aren’t always accepted by the community that stands behind those traditions. Gladwell also explains that to make a positive change in a tradition, the body that you are trying to change must be respected.
There are two forms of languages; public and private. The "private" language only spoken with family and close intimate relationships. The "public" language used in society, work, and school. Both of these help form two identities, that help us connect and communicate with one another. In the essay “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan and also in the article “Speech Communities” by Paul Roberts ,we will see how both private and public language demonstrate how we view, and grow from each language.
Sherman Alexie’s novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, tells a story of a young Indian student who makes the decision to attend a Caucasian school than his nearby Indian reservation school. The protagonist, Arnold Spirit Junior, faces many issues in adjusting to his new school as well as the isolation he faces from his tribe members. Similarly, Mark Haddon’s novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, tells a story of an autistic teenager who struggles to find a place where he belongs. Christopher Boone, the protagonist of this novel, is a contrast to a “neurotypical” and this makes it difficult for Christopher to fit into places. Both Christopher and Arnold face a journey full of struggles and self-discovery
Alexander Stowe is a twin, his brother is Aaron Stowe. Alex is an Unwanted, Aaron is a Wanted, and their parents are Necessaries. Alex is creative in a world where you can’t even see the entire sky, and military is the dream job for everyone and anyone. He should have been eliminated, just like all the unwanteds should have been. He instead comes upon Artimè, where he trains as a magical warrior- after a while. When he was still in basic training, and his friends were not, he got upset, he wants to be the leader, the one everyone looks up to.
In the book The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, Junior is the narrator of the book. He is Native American and lives on the “rez” with his mom, dad and sister. At the beginning of the book his sister runs away. His sister was a role model for Junior so when she ran away it made life harder on Junior. One day in school Junior realized how deprived his school is on the rez. In anger he threw his text book at his teacher. He expected the teacher to scold him but instead his teacher, Mr. P told him about a white public school called Rearden. Junior decided to go there so he could get a better education. When Junior asked his best friend Rowdy to go to Rearden with him Rowdy refused, and they got in a big fight. A Maxim
Peeling the Onion is about a girl named Anna who gets into a car accident that changed her entire life. She was a normal 17-year-old popular girl whose favorite activity was karate (Orr, 1997). Halfway through the novel, she turns 18, and according to the text, this would mean that she is transitioning from middle adolescence into late adolescence (Steinberg, 2011). She had her life all figured out, and had just received the first step to her dream of being successful in karate and moving to a new stage in a relationship (Orr, 1997). Though she survived the crash, she broke her neck, fractured her feet, and suffered brain damage (Orr, 1997). She spends the entire book going through therapy and trying to put her life back together, while coping with the changes that she now has to endure. Her body is permanently crippled, and her old life is completely changed. Everything in her old life—karate, Hayden (her boyfriend), and Caroline (a friend who abandons her), and her old self—is gone, and she has to try to adjust to the new life of being scarred for life (Orr, 1997).
In the spirt of taking risks like in both short stories, “Miss. Lora” and “The toughest Indian Alive” I too have taken bold risks like they did. I am of Chinese heritage, but I was born and raised here. My views on dating a person is different than other people of my heritage because I don’t believe that people should only date within their own race. I believe that love has no boundaries. I believe that if you love someone or even like someone it’s because of who they are as a person not what they look like or what religion they believe in. Traditionally, many elders don’t like the idea of the younger generation dating other races because especially with immigrant parents they always bring up the question about communication, how will we communicate with one another if we do end up getting married.
The life of a tenant farmer is not an easy way to live. They some how are able to get by on what little they have. Things start to go bad when foreigners come and start to modernize their little village. They struggle at first but managed to adapt to the new. The author of Nectar in a Sieve Kamala Markandaya was influenced by her early life as a journalist, her homeland and the culture around her.
Rejection and denial of one’s situation often hinders improvement. Conversely, acceptance allows improvement to occur; this is demonstrated by Rukmani, the protagonist of Kamala Markandaya’s novel, Nectar in a Sieve, who survives a stream of misfortunes by accepting, rather than denying, her situation. When she accepts misfortune as having occurred, she is able to seek for improvement. Through Rukmani’s plight and struggles, it is shown that in order to survive through periods of struggle and hardship, one must accept one’s situation to be able to improve from it.
In the second chapter of Animal’s People, its protagonist Animal talks about eyes, eyes that fill the darkness, that appear whichever way he looks, and look for things to see. He says eyes come whenever he starts talking, they quietly watch and patiently wait, and then settle like flies on the pictures that are born from everything he says.