How to Tame a Wild Tongue

Gabby Allen  

August 30, 2014

Professor Young

English 1 1100

“How to tame a Wild Tongue” Questions

1.  The opening scene of Anzaldua in the dentist’s chair connects to he overall point/message of the essay and title.  In the opening scene, the dentist is always saying how they have to control her tongue because it pushes out the cotton balls that are in her mouth. It connects to the essay because the point is to show that you can’t control how some people speak or the type of Spanish they speak.

2.  Anzaldua uses Spanish all throughout her writing to make sense of all the different ways the Spanish can be used.  She wanted to show that people use different kinds of Spanish depending on where they are from or live.

3.  Academic English can be defined as Spanish and Chicano Spanish can be defined as nonstandard.  Academics English is Spanish because the language takes parts out of the English language to speak Spanish.  Chicano Spanish is nonstandard because it uses different kinds of syllables.  Standard versus nonstandard could mean that one language may be used more often than the other.

4.  It is necessary to speak and write in Academic English as an identity.  It is also good to speak and write in Spanish, also.

5.  Spanish is a type of English identity in my opinion.  There are more Spanish speaking people in the United States now so being able to know Spanish is beneficial for everyone.

6.  My friends and I don’t use a specific secret language to communicate with each other but we may have like our own little code names for different things or topics.

7.  When talking to my friends I use an informal type of English.  While speaking to my family or an adult I use a formal type of English.  When you talk to your friends you aren’t trying to make a good impression.  When talking to your mother or professor you talk formally because you want to act mature and like an adult.

8.  “I am my language” is saying that how you act or talk is who you are.  The way you yourself speaks, is your own language.  How you act and your body language also ties into this.

9.  The opening and closing of the essay connect because in the opening it states how you have to cut out the tongue in order to control it and in the closing it states how the Chicanos survive with what they got.

10.  The language I speak can be a part of my identity because it shows where I am from.  It shows where I am from and that’s all a part of your personal identity.

11.  Identity is important to me because it shows what details of yourself makes you the human being you are.  Anzaldua believed it was important to have identity because the different Spanish languages all showed the different areas of where these people came from.