“How to Tame a Wild Tongue Essay”

(Question 2)

     “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, by Gloria Anzaldua who conveys her story about a Mexican-American woman who struggles to preserve her heritage and culture. In the story the main fight she is putting up was to keep “Chicano Spanish”, which is a form of Spanish, alive. She doesn’t surrender despite what people say, but rather puts up a fight and doesn’t give up. The Mexican society would wish upon her to use proper Castellan whereas the American society would wish upon her to speak proper English. However she speaks a language which came to be known as Chicano Mexican as a result of having been taught by both societies. The author Gloria Anzaldua uses many forms of rhetorical devices such as perspective, diction, and syntax in her words to tell this story.

     The author starts off with a nostalgic memory that the woman recalls of when she was caught speaking Spanish and getting in a lot of trouble because she was told to speak English. It shows how much of a hard time she had to go through growing up because of the language which she spoke. Anzaldua uses a lot of perspective in the beginning of the story as we hear a lot from the woman’s point of view. She uses many anecdotes to first introduce her heritage and the language which she is familiar with.  “Wild tongues can’t be tamed, they can only be cut out”, is a very clear sense of how she feels, however this is merely one way of looking at the problem she faces. It is never easy for a person to assimilate a new environment which they must learn to adapt too. Just as she is an immigrant to the country, she is also an immigrant to the American culture as well. The background information which she provides us with in the text shows how much her culture and language means to her. She is very shocked to hear certain types of language from certain people. She is disturbed when she hears a Puerto Rican and a Cuban use the word nosotros. She finds it as being “robbed” by the masculine plural and concludes that language is a male discourse. 

       The author uses many transition phrases in which she relates many words in Spanish to the text in order to develop a more coherent explanation of what she is trying to say. She gives many examples of words in Spanish which are no longer used or “lost” in the modern era such as semos, truje, haiga, and many more as well. By giving examples of words which have been lost and explaining the meanings which have transitioned, we are given a clearer and conceptual understanding of what it actually that she is fighting for. Throughout the text she uses a lot of diction as she gives off of a sense of resentment by the choice of words she provides in the text as well as the message the story pertains to convey. From the beginning of the story where the dentist was giving her problems, to the ending where she speaks of the hard times that Chicanos have to deal with, we feel a sense of frustration from Gloria as she is trying to compensate the struggles that come with the scenario she is forced to face.

           Her native tongue and accent have come to significantly shape the development of her personal characteristics.  In paragraphs 27-30 she uses syntax in order to convey her emotions and identity using many declarative statements. She cries for lingual acceptance as shown when she says “I will have my voice Indian, Spanish, white. I will have my serpent’s tongue.”  Again we see the frustration in the text of how badly she wants to be accepted along with her “native language.”  Also we see a lot of incorporation of this “native tongue” in those paragraphs to go along with many narrative flashbacks. The main problem that she faces in her life comes in her early years which she faces many struggles and obstacles which are set because of her Chicano tongue.

      Her language was the primary source of her struggles and was the reason for her frustration, low self-esteem, and overall anger. Anzaldua had a hard time getting along with her environment and never fit in for who she was linguistically.  She however always stood up for her heritage and culture despite being looked down at several times.  Language can very valued to some people and Anzaldua is a good example of how a person does not need the approval of others for her own heritage, but rather she is okay with her own self-approval as she conveys it in her story with the several examples in her story giving us a better understanding of the message in which she attempts to convey.