Response for Monday: Tan, Agosin, Gillan

What does English represent for you? Why? In your reflection, cite any of the authors you read for homework and what English means for them. Make a connection between Tan's, Agosin's, or Gillan's views on English and your own views. Keep in mind the differences between your experiences (as a native speaker of English) and the authors' experiences (as learning English as a second language).

--Elizabeth

In the short section of Patricia Smith's reading, she talks about her mother's "dream" to talk correct. Smith states that she just wants to talk right before she dies. Through her process of assimilation, she argues that she has lived to long to be stupid, acting like she just got off a boat. I believe this is her argument because you can feel the anger in her voice and the desire to change something before she dies. She also doesn't have all her life to change therefore she has to move quickly, making the process much more serious to her. Smith includes some types of rhetoric into her writing. She includes invention because she is looking for the correct things to say; the art of arrangement because she organizes a trip to Chicago to better herself; the art of style because it reflects the way she lives and her values; and the art of delivery in order to present herself well and dramatize an idea or belief. Smith incorporates almost all five constituents of rhetoric.

Talking Wrong by Patricia Smith

Smith argues that the assimilation process is one with many faults. She argues that it produces a level of shame in those who have a history of not speaking "standard" or "proper" english. She appreciates ebonics for all it's worth, the stories it tells, and the feelings it brings to her in her personal life, from one black to another. She illustrates this argument, "It hurts to hear the measured effort, which conjures a picture of the two of her on the Greyhound bus headed for the Windy City from Alabama", which reflexs her feelings of disgust for the emphasis society has put on those who do not fit the profile of all that is "standard" or "proper". Smith uses rhetorical devices of memory to convey a sense of credibility and emotional attactment to the issue.

Patricia Smith response

In the very first paragraph of "Talking Wrong", author Patricia Smith looks through her mother's eyes on a trip to her speech therapist. The therapist is described as, "a pinstirped benevolent white angel who has dedicated two hours a week to straightening the black, twisted tounges of the afflicted." As the audience, I felt as if the mother believed she was diseased; that the way she spoke was a disease. Throughout her article, the author bemoans the loss of her mother's Black Vernacular English. To her, it was comforting "like cornbread, buttery and full of places for heat to hide."

Smith's personal rhetoric is powerful in expressing her feeling of loss. She felt as if her mother was distancing herself throughout her assimilation to "standard" English. The mother's dialect was a part of who she was, and in changing that aspect, discomfort arose.

Response to Mellix and Smith

In response to the assigned readings, I feel that both authors touched on a general concept of language assimilation, but both authors had different personal feelings in regards to this subject. Both authors included personal stories about their mothers and/or families in their narratives and how the way their mothers spoke influenced their way of speaking. Both stories pertained to a "southern" style of "black English," and the type of diction and pronunciations these areas produced. I feel that both authors considered their "black English" to be very personal, and it almost defined them in a way.

Although both stories were very similar, I feel that Mellix was more comfortable with the idea of adopting "standard English." Mellix felt that in order to be successful in the academic and professional world, she needed to use "standard English" in order to sound educated. Smith saw how her mother wanted so much to speak in "standard English" because for her, it represented possibilities in a new life. It represented hope and the future, even though her daughter wasn't so keen on the idea of conforming to this proper English.

Both authors used personal stories and used examples that helped their narratives become successful rhetoric. I feel that the strongest element of both pieces was the way that the authors portrayed their language as such a personal attribute.