- Anzaldua disagrees with this statement to a great extent because she speaks a language called Pachuco, which has lingo from both the English language and the Spanish language. In the text, on page 72, it states “Pachuco (the lan-guage of the zoot suiters) is a language of rebellion, both against Standard Spanish and Standard English. It is a secret language. Adults of the culture and outsiders cannot understand it. It is made up of slang words from both English and Spanish.” This quote from the text exemplifies the fact that English and Spanish, per se, aren’t actually two entirely different universes separated by a fine line because there indeed is another, uncommon language that actually connects the two languages. This uncommon language happens to be a hybrid language consisting of lingo from both English and Spanish.
- Something I noticed about Anzaldua’s writing style is that she uses her personal experiences to make her argument stronger. For example on page 73, she states “We use anglicisms, words borrowed from English: bola from ball, carpeta from carpet, máchina de lavar (instead of lavadora) from washing machine. Tex-Mex argot, created by adding a Spanish sound at the beginning or end of an English word such as cookiar for cook, watchar for watch, parkiar for park, and rapiar for rape, is the result of the pressures on Spanish speakers to adapt to English.” I think Anzaldua used the technique of personal experience to support her argument because it can be effective in convincing and compelling the reader when they know that it’s something that the author has experienced first hand. It also made her argument sound personal because she made it seem like a part of her livelihood was being discriminated against when the theory stated that English and Spanish represent different universes.
- Liao’s conventions for literacy narratives that were most apparent in Sedaris’s essay was using her own experiences. On page 59, Liao states “literacy narratives use specific examples to illustrate ideas about literacy that we’ve acquired as a result of our own experiences, and explain explicitly why these ideas are important.” She strengthens this claim by proceeding to tell the reader about her experiences of learning the French language. She mentioned how her experience of learning wasn’t the most enjoyable experience, as well as for her discourse community, due to how harsh her French teacher was. However, towards the end she mentions how she is able to understand what her teacher is saying but she said herself, that doesn’t mean she’s fluent in the language. It just means progress was made. On the contrary, a convention that seems less important to Sedaris is making her point explicitly stated because it’s about making the reader understand, not just telling them about it.
- By the end of her essay, I genuinely don’t think Manson felt the same as she did in the beginning of the essay. Even though all her problems didn’t just go away, she managed her way and found ways to cope. Her silence was her way of dealing with which could not be spoken of. Although at the end she became silent again, her demeanor and mindset had changed. Her “I don’t know” had changed into “I said what I could”. Little changes in her mannerism proves that she had grown from the person she was at the beginning of her essay.
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Very thoughtful responses here, Nish; I appreciate the way you attended to the small changes in Manson’s experience/perspective over the course of her essay, and the way you described Anzaldua defending her many mixed languages as an essential part of her humanity.