Both M. NourbeSe Philips’ poem of “Discourse on the Logic of Language” and “Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass” impact me on deeply thinking of the importance of learning knowledges and language in the life. In 19^th century, the slaves must not get education, since the slaveholders just wanted them to work with tireless and obedient to earn more profit for themselves. The poem points out the influence of language when Philips read the Edict 1, “Every owner of slaves shall wherever possible shall ensure that the slaves belong to as many ethno-linguistic groups as possible. If they cannot speak to each other, they cannot then ferment rebellion and revolution”. This is the reason why slaveholders forced slaves to learn “father language”, which the simple English made slaves unable to communicate with each other, destroyed their ability to defiance. Also the poem came with two special ways of writing such as repeating the word as “lang” as language and putting questions into poem, leaded me to have more understanding of that feelings. “Learning would spoil the best nig** in the world” (20) from Douglass’s autobiography. This is how Auld spoke to his wife and Douglass when his kind wife tried to teaching Douglass. Whereupon, he realized that learning language can change his life and even change all slave’s history. This is the reason why our eminent Douglass would be an important anti-slavery hero in the history, as he had seen and learned a lot during his slavish live. Therefore, he knew he can use language to publicize the abolition of slavery. For slaveholders, the happiness was built on suffering of slaves. Thus slaveholders would about slaves would loss control when slaves had language and knowledges. After reading these two articles, I can image the horrible life Douglass had and the pathetic history of slaves. I can also see how inhuman slaveholder punish their slaves.

One of the first things in Philip’s poem that helps me further understand Douglass’s struggle is when she begins by saying “English is my mother tongue” and explains how it is not a foreign language. This idea reminds me of how slaves, like Douglass, are often born in the United States, and how the harsh conditions in which they work happen right here in their own country. Similarly, I am reminded of how lives of everyday Americans, such as going to school, working an industrial job with living wages, and other factors of life are familiar to the slaves. Although Douglass works on plantations for much of his life, he still understands how everyday Americans live.

Philips then goes on to say that slaves are deprived of an education, so that they “cannot speak to each other,” reminding me of how Douglass was not allowed to learn much more than what Sophia Auld originally taught him when they first met. Without being educated, slaves would not be literate, and therefore would not be able to rebel against their owners and conjure up ways to escape the harsh conditions in which they live. Furthermore, when Philips mentions the belief that “white males have larger brains” than women and blacks, and that they are superior beings, this shows me the entire idea behind slavery. It was based solely off of the unproven belief that some people are superior to others, and therefore have the rights to rule them. This is similar to the idea in Douglass’s narrative that not only are people born into slavery because of their race, and other factors that they cannot control, but also that they may feel that if slaves become free, they will begin to take jobs previously performed by supposedly better people.

I believe that listening to M. NourbeSe Philip read the poem “Discourse on the Logic of Language” helps a great deal when it comes to getting a further understanding of the power of the poem but also the life narrative from Fredrick Douglass. This is because she reads it with such power and heart and I really was able to channel this and understand the power given off by Fredrick Douglass. Something I found interesting after experiencing both works was how much “Discourse on the Logic of Language” and “Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass” are intertwined. One case where I believe this to be true is in the poem,  “mother tongue” and “father tongue” are used quite often as well as when it is written that it was believed white men had larger brains than both women and people of color so they were viewed as superior. The “mother tongue” in the narrative was forbidden to be taught and known by the slaves because they would be able to come together and revolt and then the “father tongue” was english because that is what the slaves were taught from their father or their slave masters at birth so they would 1. not be able to collude as easily against their owners but also so it would be easier to receive orders while at the plantations. I really appreciated listening to her read the poem because the emotion she put into reading that allowed me to see the narrative from a whole different emotional perspective.

Douglass’s Narrative consistently discusses how language (knowledge and education) is at constant odds with slavery. The active prevention of educating slaves and teaching them language is something that is both emphasized in Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and M. NourbeSe Philips “Discourse on the Logic of Language.” Philips repeatedly mentioned the complex relationship between having a mother tongue a father tongue and no tongue at all. I understood this argument to mean that slaves had no mother or father tongue; they had no language of their own, and were forced to take on the language of their master. In addition, she emphasized how as punishment for speaking out, slaves would sometimes literally loose their tongue, so their lack of a native language can actually be the physical loss of their ability to speak. All of this is consistent with Douglass’s arguments, as he repeatedly discusses his yearning for learning, education, and language throughout his life, and how under slavery it was forbidden. Philips mentions that preventing communication and a uniform language between the slaves, helped block rebellion, because it would be impossible to formally rebel if there is no clear communication channel. Philips also brings up the complex relationship between mother and child under slavery; something that Douglass regards as non-existent under the reprehensible idea of tearing apart mother from child. In addition, Philips’s word bending throughout her performance is similar to Douglass’s performance of his language and speech at his first abolitionist convention in Nantucket. Douglass’s language is his history, his story, and his fight for freedom. By performing that, he is in many ways teaching the world the language of slavery.

I first became familiar with Douglass’ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass in my American Political Thought class last semester. Something I noticed especially surprising and extraordinary about his narrative was the eloquence and fluency of Douglass’ words as a speaker of his own narrative. As a slave, Douglass was deprived of language, reading and writing skills- skills that a white person took advantage of. However, his narrative proved otherwise. Douglass wrote with more articulation and expression than any individual of his time. In a similar way, M. NourbeSe Philips performs her poem “Discourse on the Logic of Language,” which is comparable in many ways to Douglass’ slave narrative in terms of language. Her poem stresses the importance of the “mother tongue,” or language, we see throughout Douglass’ narrative. Both writers use language to assess their status as an individual and as a medium to integrate themselves into society. They tend to stray away from using words in their most basic sense. They take words and add complexity by means of literary devices and figurative language. Douglass especially does so to prove his intelligence as a slave. For example, in chapter one, Douglass writes, “By far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs…” In this sentence, Douglass uses a simile to show that slaves are perceived as having the intellectual of a horse. Douglass also uses irony, alliteration, personification and rhetoric devices to underline the significance and power of language. In addition, Philips emphasizes, “Every owner of slaves shall wherever possible shall ensure that the slaves belong to as many ethno-linguistic groups as possible. If they cannot speak to each other, they cannot then ferment rebellion and revolution. ” Thus, language is the most powerful form of expression which is necessary to liberate slaves from the bondage that constrains them to their slaveholders.

This poem, Discourse on the Logic of Language by M. NourbeSe Philip seems to be about slavery. Philip mentions multiple time the lack of mother tongue that they have in the US and they are forced to speak English which is their father tongue.  Think that the father tongue shows the oppression they received and how they were forced into the US. You can also see that she choose the “Father tongue” as English because men in those times are also superior. Also I found this poem a bit confusing and annoying at first. I actually had to listen to it a few times. I think that the choice of words that were chosen were to suggest the lack of communications and lack of education slaves went through.

I recall that in the Frederick Douglas’s Narrative that slaves were no allowed to speak in their own language. So it really connects to the poem. Slaves were not allowed to speak their native language therefor they didn’t have a mother tong or eventually lost their mother tongue. And was forced to speak English, father tongue that was forced upon them. Another similarity I found was that often in slavery, children were separated from their mothers so they will lose their mother tongue. They were probably separated and not allowed to speak their mother tongue because the slave owners didn’t want them to start to rebel or plan against them. They cut their best way in communication to continue to oppress them and keep them as slaves.

Sandy

M. NourbeSe Philips’ poem “Discourse on the Logic of Language” mainly talks about the power of language in colonial contexts. According to Philips’ demonstration, language has the power of shaping identity. Philips points out that English, which is called the “Father language” in the poem, has been used as a tool/tactic for frustrating slaves’ self-realization and identity formation by the colonizers. In order to oppress slaves and gain power over them, the white slaveholders teach their slaves the “Father language” and punished “Slave caught speaking his native language” as a means of destroying their “mother tongue”. In the poem, the sentence “English / is my mother tongue / A mother tongue is not / not a foreign lan lan lang / language / l / anguish / – a foreign anguish” is the most impressive to me. Philips plays on the word “language,” repeating “lan” to represent that she cannot locate her mother-tongue because it has been severed from its cultural and linguistic origins. This sentence can also express the anguish of the African people under the brutality and the violence practiced by the colonizers. Philips’ poem relates to Douglass’s Narrative regarding to how white slaveholders gain power and retain slavery by keeping their slaves ignorant. Douglass uses his own experience to explain that the enforced ignorance robs slaves’ natural sense of individual identity. Slave owners keep slaves by depriving them of knowledge and education in order to prevent them from pursuing freedom. In short, Philips and Douglass illustrate the same tactic of how white slaveholders control their slaves.

In the poem “Discourse on the Logic of Language” we are introduced to the idea of language, and how it relates to idea of slavery. The relation is made by comparing the mother tongue to the father tongue. The mother tongue is essentially non existent because the child was not taught his native language. The father tongue is English because the slaves were forced to speak english. Slave owners felt that if the slaves were to know their native language then it would be easier for them to revolt against their owners. The idea of educating slaves was highly forbidden and unlawful. With this in mind slaves were given the least amount of knowledge needed to obey their masters. In Frederick Douglass’s narrative we see a similar scenario when Mr. Auld finds out that Mrs. Auld was teaching Douglass how to read and write. “Just at this point of my progress, Mr. Auld found out what was going on, and at once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct me further…” (20). Mr. Auld thought process was that the ability for a slave to read and write would make them unmanageable, and in return less valuable.

The reading of the poem “Discourse on the Logic of Language” provided great context to Frederick Douglass’s autobiography and gains a lot of strength after reading about his life. The beginning of the poem starts with the repetition and breakdown of the word language as the poem describes the separation between father and mother language. The narrator states that the mother’s  language is the native language while the father’s is the foreign language in between repeated rephrasing of language to sound like land, anguish, and other similar words. This brings a lot of emotional weight to the parts in the biography where Douglass states that he was separated from his mother when he was a baby and had very little contact with her. This part of the poem also shows the rejection and rage he feels about his “Father’s language” due to the fact he never knew his father except from rumors that it was a white man, possibly the slave master, which makes his father apart of the group that took advantage of slaves.

The part where the mother blows her words into the child’s mouth and the fact the mother language is the home language could be a emotional reflection of the fact that that children born of slaves were deemed slaves and treated as such. This fact in the autobiography also plays into the poem because later on the poem states “english is my mother tongue, my father tongue” showing that, even though he has his roots in America, he is treated as an other. Another big moment in the poem is the test questions proposed. One asking what was the tongue’s primary use and one answer was “the principle organ of oppression and exploitation” which brings to mind the slave handler that would use many a horrid slur any time he yelled or wiped the slaves. This poem seems to me a stark contrast to the book due to one reason. In the book, Douglass goes about describing his life in the institution of slavery in great detail and relating it to the lives all slaves must face while the poem is just pure emotion and sting of consciousness.

M. NourbeSe Philips’ reading of “Discourse on the Logic of Language” relates to Frederick Douglass’s life through “anguish,” slavery, and language. The poem mentions the prevention of slaves speaking to one another in order to avoid any rebellion. It also mentions that any slave seen speaking to another slave in their native languages would face punishment by their owners. These punishments were so brutal they even included the removal of the slave’s tongue. This reminds me of a portion in the narrative of Frederick Dougass where he speaks of the slaves being “ranked” and equal to animals. He also spoke about a time called the “division” stating he had no “language to express the high excitement and deep anxiety which were felt among us poor slaves during this time. (40)” I believe this relates to the poem regarding the lack of “language” slaves had. The poem also contains a technique in enunciating specific words in order to give importance to what they needed the reader to understand. An example of this is when the reader introduces the idea of a slave’s “mother tongue.” The idea of language plays a very important role in both “Discourse on the Logic of Language” and Frederick Douglass’ “Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass”.