The voice of the narrator in the poem, “Ode to American English”, by Barbara Hamby uses the first person point of view, irony, and character voice to openly communicate about the uniqueness and criticism of the English language. First, the use of first person point of view creates a distinctive internal voice of the character. The author states, “I miss the mongrel plentitude of American English, its fall-guy, rat-terrier, dog-pound neologisms, the bomb of it all, the rushing River Jordan backwoods mutability of it” (83). Hamby writing her poem from the first person point of view is the same thing as using voice, because the way she portrays herself through the poem seems like she was directly speaking to me. Secondly, through the use of irony,
The poem I personally chose was called, American Hero I chose this poem because I can relate to this on a personal level coupled with the fact that it was very suspenseful and brought you off of your seat. This particular poem was developed by Essex Hemphill, he was born in 1957 and later passed on in 1995. He began writing in his early years and with all this time he developed 3 volumes of poetry Essex has been active in writing all his life and was a great role model to our future writers. American hero is a successful poem that signifies on self-acceptance and social acceptance, also denial. The poems setting was based at a basketball court with all eyes on the main character, referenced from page 307 stanza 1 the author wrote,’’I have
Laura Deeb’s An Enchanted Modern: Gender and Public Piety in Shi’i Lebanon seeks to rectify post-9/11 notions of political Islam as anti-modern and incongruous with Western formulations of secular modernity. Specifically, Deeb is writing in opposition to a Weberian characterization of modern secular Western societies as the development of bureaucracies through social rationalization and disenchantment. Within this Weberian framework Deeb asserts that Shia communities are in-part modern because of the development of beuorocratic institutions to govern and regulate religious practice. However, Deeb makes a stronger argument oriented towards dislodging the assumptions "that Islamism is static and monolithic, and that
In her narrative Mother Tongue, Amy Tan speaks of how the English language has shaped her life, drawing from personal experiences in her early life, to her daily use of English in the present. Tan begins her narrative by identifying her own “mother tongue”, which is simply the broken English her mother uses and has been accustomed to. Tan says that due to her mother’s broken English some are unable to understand her, thereby limiting Tan’s mother to function properly in our English speaking society. Tan shows the reader how her feelings toward her mother tongue have changed throughout her life drawing out a personal experience from her adolescence.
Amy Tan, first, describes different Englishes she speaks under two scenarios. She talks with standard-form English in her speech to a large number of people, but uses language like her mom unconsciously during family conversations. The author thinks that her mom’s “broken” English limits both their daily life and her own potentials. During her childhood, Tan has to help or represent mom to communicate with
Writers like Amy Tan, use rhetorical writing to display emotional appeal, tone, style, and even organization. In Tan’s article, Mothers Tongue, she writes about her experiences with her mother's inability to speak English. She provides examples from her childhood of being discriminated, and stereotyped because of her race. Tan addresses cultural racism without showing any anger or specifically pointing out racism. She makes the reader realize that immigrants have to deal with discrimination, and disrespect in their daily lives. She uses Ethos, Pathos, and Logos to let the reader see what she went through in her early childhood experiences. Her audience reaches out to families who speak “broken English”, and have to deal with being discriminated, and disrespected.
In the work of Amy Tan’s “Mother’s Tongue” she provides a look into how she adapted her language to assimilate into American culture. She made changes to her language because her mother heavily relied on her for translation. She was the voice of her mother, relaying information in standard English to those who were unable to understand her mother’s broken english. She tells about her mother’s broken english and its impact on her communication to those outside their culture. Her mothers broken english limited others’ perception of her intelligence, and even her own perception of her mother was scewed: Tan said, “I know this for a fact, because when I was growing up, my mothers ‘limited’ English limited my perception of her. I was ashamed of her English. I believed that her English reflected the quality of what she had to say.” (419) The use of standard english was a critical component to Tan’s assimilation into American culture. Standard English was an element she acquired to help her mother but more importantly is was an element that helped in her gain success as a writer. Tan changed her ‘Englishes’ (family talk) to include standard English that she had learnt in school and through books, the forms of English that she did not use at home with her mother. (417-418) Tan realized the ch...
The author also tends to add a lot of descriptive adjectives to her writing. For example, “A telephone call makes my throat bleed and takes up that day's courage. It spoils my day with self-disgust when I hear my broken voice come skittering out into the open. It makes people wince to hear it.” The descriptive words: self-disgust, spoil, and wince provide the needed explanation to the reader for how the narrator feels. As the reader gets deeper into the essay more examples of these descriptive adjectives become present, “It was when I found out I had to talk that school became a misery, that the silence became a misery. I did not speak and felt bad each time that I did not speak. I read aloud in first grade, though, and heard the barest whisper with little squeaks come out of my throat.” This line is full of unique adjectives about how the narrator feels about speaking English. Words like: misery, barest, whisper, and the phrase “little squeaks” all add to Kingston’s style of writing and show her descriptive language used when writing. Although the essay does not lack detail or description, the essay is particularly
Amy Tan is an author who was born in 1952 in Oakland, California. Her parents, who emigrated from China, encouraged her to study in a math or science career but she soon had an interest in English instead. From attending San Jose State University, she got her bachelor’s and master’s degrees. She wrote a story called “Mother’s Tongue” which describes the different ways of English forms there is to pursue. Her thesis is a discussion of language and how it can affect her profession in the long run. Her purpose for this story is to show that everyone has their own dialect around certain people. Tan mentions how she learned English and how it changed her. There is a relation between Tan’s writing that has me questioning things because of how I
What is the American Voice? The american voice has a different meaning to each individual person. To me, the American voice means freedom and patriotism. Freedom is an example of the American voice because because a lot of people come to America to gain liberty. Patriotism is part of the American voice because it shows your pride and willingness to fight for America. Patrick Henry best represents the American voice in his speech “Give me Liberty or Give me Death” because he shows his national pride and wants freedom for America.
George Orwell’s essay, Politics and the English Language, first published in 1946, talks about some “bad habits”, which have driven the English language in the wrong direction, that is, away from communicating ideas. In his essay he quotes five passages, each from a different author, which embody the faults he is talking about. He lists dying metaphors, operators, pretentious diction, and meaningless words as things to look out for in your own writing and the writing of others (593-595). He talks about political uses of the English language. Our language has become ugly and the ugliness impedes upon communication. Ugly uses of language have been reinforced and passed down in the population “even among people who should and do know better,” (598). Ugly language has been gaining ground in our population by a positive feedback mechanism.
In the essay “Mother Tongue” Amy Tan, the author, gives a different, a more upbeat outlook on the various forms of English that immigrants speak as they adapt to the American culture. Using simple language to develop her argument, she casually communicates to the audience rather than informing which helps the audience understand what is being presented at ease. Her mother plays an important role in her outlook of language, because she helps her realize that language not only allows one to be a part of a culture but create one’s identity in society. Amy Tan shares her real life stories about cultural racism and the struggle to survive in America as an immigrant without showing any emotions, which is a wonderful epiphany for the audience in realizing
In Mr. Brzoska’s class I had to choose four essays to analyze for figurative language. I dreaded the thought of having to read twelve essays, nor did I believe that I would enjoy the readings. When selecting the essays, I was driven by curiosity. I chose DON’T EAT BEFORE READING THIS by Anthony Bourdain, SANDRA BLAND AND OR VULNERABLE BODIES constructed by Roxane Gay, WHY WE CRAVE HORROR MOVIES by the famous Stephen King. Lastly, I selected FROM JAMAICA TO MINNESOTA TO MYSELF written by Marlon James.
Ross, Steven M. ""Voice" in Narrative Texts: The Example of As I Lay Dying." PMLA94.2 (1979): 300-10. JSTOR. Web. 23 Mar. 2014.
Language is like a blooming flower in adversity – they are the most rare and beautiful of them all as it struggles to express itself. It blooms and flourishes in strength, awe, and passion as the riches of thought is imbibed from the seed and into a finished beauty. For others, a non-native person speaking in a language that they are not familiar with sprouts out like a weed – the way its thorns can puncture sympathy and comprehensibility. Amy Tan, however, addresses the nature of talk as being unique under its own conditions. In Tan's “Mother Tongue”, she discusses how her mother's incoherent language is “broken” and “limited” as compared to other native English speakers. When focusing on Amy Tan, she grows noticeably embarrassed with her mother's lack of acuteness in the language, which then influences Tan to “prove her mastery over the English language.” However, she soon learns from herself and -- most importantly -- her mother that a language's purpose is to capture a person's “intent, passion, imagery, and rhythm of speech and nature of thought.” With such an enticing elegance...
Your voice refers to the voice of the author, so it is the voice that Xaba and Hemphel were trying to get across to readers. Their voices could be brought about by many different techniques such as their choice of words, the order in which they are used, imagery and rhythm. There’s emphasis on authors to say things clearly and precisely to ensure that their language is as different as they can make it. These techniques are used to avoid over doing the writing when they aren’t equipped to write that particular way. Each and every author has developed a different voice, and that is evident in ‘The Weekend’ and ‘Going’, between Hemphel and Xaba. In Going’ by Hemphel we see the use of techniques such as idioms, It is somewhat very formal and direct, it’s easy to read and understand while at the same time it may seem confusing as there are plenty of figures of speech, ‘she’s a sport, this nurse’, which are included in the shor...