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Hilda Flores
Eng. 2
Connelly
13 Dec. 2016
Rhetorical Analysis
In this essay I will be doing a rhetorical analysis of Anzalduas article, How to Tame a
Wild Tongue. Anzaldua purpose in writing this article was to persuade others not to be ashamed
of their accent and language because everyone speaks differently depending their culture. She
persuades this by stating, There is no one Chicano language just as there is no one Chicano
experience(Anzaldua 58), because every culture speaks differently depending on how they were
raised. Anzaldua audience in this article is for Spanish speakers and for people who feel
uncomfortable speaking their language.
The persona she shows in this article is a confident Spanish speaker who is proud of her
accent. Anzaldua shows how proud she is of her accent by saying, I will no longer be made to
feel ashamed of existing. I will have my voice: Indian, Spanish, white. I will have my serpents
tongue-my womans voice, my sexual voice, my poets voice. I will overcome the tradition of
silence (Anzaldua 59). She shows her confidence in how she feels and encourages others not to
feel ashamed. Her persona makes her cogent because she is clear in her argument and
convincing.
Anzaldua is arguing about people being ashamed of their own language because of their
accent. In the article, How to Tame a Wild Tongue Anzaldua mentions, Chicanas feel
uncomfortable talking in Spanish to Latinas, afraid of their censure(Anzaldua 58), she conveys
the readers that even when talking to people in the same race people feel ashamed of their accent.

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Anzaldua argument is explicit because she recognizes that there is a doubt in our accent at some
point even if youre talking to someone that speaks the same language as you. She clarifies that
at a point in her life she felt ashamed of her accent too, because she was told to change her
accent. In the beginning of the article, she mentions how her teacher would get her in trouble for
not talking English right. She explicitly says this by saying that others make you feel unconfident
with your accent because others dont like it. Anzaldua asserts, At Pan University, I and all
Chicano students were required to take two speech classes. Their purpose: to get rid of our
accents (Anzaldua 54), Anzaldua shows how Chicano students are forced to change their accent
making them feel ashamed of their language.
In the article, she also argues that not only Americans made her feel ashamed of her
accent, but other Spanish speakers would too. By correcting her and making her change her
language because it was incorrect for them. Anzaldua shows worldview in her argument, because
she would believe what others would say, and thought her accent was wrong. She then realized
her accent cant be fixed, and argued that everyone speaks differently. That this is because of his
or her culture and there is no one language in Spanish, so you shouldnt feel ashamed. She made
a statement that backed up her argument by saying, Chicano Spanish is not incorrect, it is a
living language, because it changes over time. For people who are neither Spanish nor live in
the country in which Spanish is the first languagewhat recourse is left to them but to create
their own language( Anzaldua 55). Anzaldua argument was clear not to be ashamed of the way
you speak Spanish because everyone speaks it differently. Anzaldua constructed her argument
using deductive reasoning because she proves its true that Chicanos are insecure of their accent.

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Work Cited
Anzaldua, Gloria. How to Tame a Wild Tongue. Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. San
Francisco: Spinsters/Aunt Lute, 1987. 53-64.

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