Reading Response Answers to "How to Tame a Wild Tongue"

Helena Chiappa
ENGL 1100, Writing Skills Workshop
September 5, 2016
Prof. Young

Reading Response Answers to "How to Tame a Wild Tongue"

1. The opening scene of Anzaldua in the dentist's chair connects to the overall point of the essay and title because the dentist is trying to work around her strong, stubborn tongue to clean her teeth. It is another instance in Anzaldua's life where she had to tame her wild tongue. Controlling her tongue has been an important part of her life, whether at the dentist or in school. Personally, the same thing happens to me when I am at the dentist. It is awkward to have someone messing around inside your mouth with big tools and metal instruments. I dread having to stay still for only an hour of the appointment. I can't imagine living with that feeling all the time.
2. At some points while reading, it was difficult to understand Anzaldua's use of Spanish throughout her writing. Mostly, I could infer what she was saying without having to translate the words. Her purpose was the show how she felt having to learn English. The way I feel reading Spanish must of been the same way she was feeling having to read English all the time.
3. Standard and nonstandard languages can be categorized because standard is spoken by the majority of people and nonstandard is spoken by smaller select groups of people. Nonstandard was viewed as the lesser way to speak. The Chicanos had to learn to speak in the standard way because they were hard to understand by others.
4. The necessity of speaking and writing in Academic English as an identity is to be able to communicate with the genaeral and formal way that most people speak. Speaking the Academic English way is neccessary when it comes to the work place and communicating with employees and/or employees and the basics of being a professional.   
5. Various English identities could include the way that people speak in the north versus the south, just as eastern states compared to western states. Different places speak in different ways depending on where they are from. 
6. I can't relate to have a secret language with friends completely, but I can understand how friends could grow up in certain places together and in close-knit groups, speaking and referring to things in certain ways that they only know how to. 
7. I speak in a nonstandard and non-formal way when I am with my friends. I speak a formal, standard way when I speak with my professors and parents. I speak these different ways because of what each audience expects from me and naturally how are society has grown to speak.
8. When Anzaldua says "I am my language." it is in reference to who she is and how she grew up. Everyone's language and how they speak it is different. It reflects how they grew up in their culture and help form their identity.
9. The introduction and the conclusion connect because of how Anzaldua explains in both how her native tongue is unique and in different ways explains how it separates her culture and people from everyone else's. She wanted to give a message that her tongue and her people are strong and they have been through hardships.
10. The language people speak can be a part of someones identity because it shows the uniqueness in different peoples' lives and cultures. An example is shown when Anzaldua says "Chicanos' way of speaking spanish sprang because of the need to identify ourselves as a distinct people (247)." Our differences are what makes our identities.
11. Identity is important to me because it is what separates people from others in the world. It gives people their unique personalities. Anzaldua believes in this in how she speaks of the importance of being a distinct people and having their unique way of life. This is shown by having a "home tongue" and in the end when she writes about Los Chicanos. It is easy to change who you are just to fit in with other cultures so it was important for Anzaldua to say, "When other races have given up their tongue, we've kept ours." It sets the Chicanos a part even though they are pressured to conform.

Work Cited

Anzaldua, Gloria. "How to Tame a Wild Tongue." Teaching Developmental Writing. Ed. Susan

     Naomi Bernstein. New York: Bedford/ St. Martin's, 2013. 245-255. Print.