ENGL 1100, Writing Skills Workshop
Reading Response Questions to “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”
Directions: After reading “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” answer the questions in complete sentences. Your responses must be typed. All typed assignments must have a heading: your full name, the current full date, my name, class name and section, and assignment title. The heading goes in the top left hand corner of your paper.
- Discuss how the opening scene of Anzaldua in the dentist’s chair connects to the overall point/message of the essay and title.
The dentist is attempting to do a procedure in her mouth, but it is very difficult for him to do because her “wild tongue” will not stop moving. The dentist describes the tongue as “strong and stubborn”, similar to Anzaldua’s passion about her culture. Regardless of what others try to do to get her language and culture out of her, she will not allow it to happen.
2. Discuss Anzaldua’s use of the Spanish throughout her writing. Did it make sense? What was her purpose?
The purpose of Anzaldua’s use of Spanish language throughout her writing is to share some of the Spanish sayings that she already knows and to make them more understandable, she provides an explanation that relates to them.
3. Can Academic English be defined as Spanish (Standard) and can Chicano Spanish be described as nonstandard? Why? What inferences, conclusions, can be made from referring to one identity (language) as standard versus nonstandard?
Academic English can be defined as standard because it is all very proper and grammatically correct. Chicano Spanish can be described as nonstandard because it is mostly “slang”. It is not fully English, yet it is not fully Spanish. Therefore, it is not always understandable along with not always being grammatically correct.
4. Discuss the necessity of speaking and/writing in Academic English as an indentity. Is it necessary?
Speaking and writing in Academic English does not have much to do with your personal identity. It is not necessary because you are only really doing it for school. It is like an English speaking student taking a foreign language course in school, they learn how to read, write, and speak in the language, but it is not necessary for it to be a part of their identity.
5. Anzaldua describes different types of Spanish, identities. Discuss the various types of English, identities, you know.
In the United States, people are usually identified by the state or region they are from and may speak a certain type of slang and/or have some sort of accent. For example, people from the New York/New Jersey area are known for having a certain accent and for sometimes using “slang”.
6. Pachuco. Do you use a secret language, secret identity, to communicate to your friends? If so, what?
I would not say that I use a secret language or identity to communicate with my friends, but my language is sometimes slightly different and less standard than it may be with others.
7. Chicano Spanish can be compared to non-standard English. What form of English (standard or nonstandard) do you speak with your friends (audience)? What form of English do you speak when you talk to your mother (audience), professor (audience)? Why?
The language that I use around my friends is not always as standard as the language I use around my professors and parents because when I am around authority figures, I like to sound mature and professional.
8. “I am my language.” What does this mean? How does this statement connect to a person’s identity?
It means that the language that you speak makes up a big part of your identity. It connects to your identity because it reflects on how you were raised, who you were raised by, your nationality, and your origin.
9. Talk specifically about how the introduction and conclusion connect.
In the introduction, Anzaldua is in a dentist chair getting a procedure done, but the dentist can not do it because her tongue is too “wild” and keeps getting in the way. In the conclusion, she describes Los Chicanos as “stubborn, persevering, impenetrable as stone, yet possessing a malleability that renders us unbreakable”. From start to finish, Anzaldua is emphasizing that you can not take the Chicana out of girls like her.
10. Can the language you speak be a part of your identity? Why?
Yes it can because your language is usually a reflection of your origin and where you are from. A big part of your identity is you homeland and origin.
11. How important is identity to you? Does Anzaldua believe it’s important to have identity? Use some examples from “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” to support your answer.
Identity is very important to me. Anzaldua does believe that it is important to have identity. She states, “ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity - I am my language”. She also discusses how “food and certain smells are tied to my identity, to my homeland”. Anzaldua firmly believes that your identity has a lot to do with your origin, background, and home. She is from Mexico, speaks the language, and makes many references to her life when she had lived there.
KEY IDEAS FROM “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”
- In my culture they are all words that derogatory if applied to women—I’ve never heard them applied to men…Language is a male discourse” (244-245).
2. “Pocho, cultural traitor, you’re speaking the oppressor’s language by speaking English, you’re ruining the Spanish language,” I have been accused by various Latinos and Latinas. Chicano Spanish is considered by the purist and by most Latinos deficient, a mutilation of Spanish” (245).
3. “Chicano Spanish sprang out of the Chicanos’ need to identify ourselves as a distinct people” (245).
4. From kids and people my own age I picked up Pachuco. Pachuco (the language of the zoot suiters) is a language of rebellion, both against Standard Spanish and Standard English. It is a secret language” (246).
5. Chicano Spanish. (247).
6. Linguistic Terrorism (248).
7. My Native Tongue
8. Si Le preguntas a mi mama, “Que eres?”
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