Cover Letter
Dear reader,
My name is Yumna Ahmed, and I speak four languages (English, Urdu, Arabic, Tamil). Being a student in English 110 has given me new perspective on what it means to be multilingual, introducing me to the positives and negatives of language politics and how it affects me, as well as the people around me. Literature from Amy Tan, Langston Hughes, and James Baldwin provoked me to question my relationship with language, as they wrote about language discrimination in their lives.
Assignment two’s prompt challenged us to write a rhetorical text on language politics. Therefore, I looked to my journey with my linguistic love (or linguistic self-hatred), to construct an argument on whether one can hate the language they love. Although I narrated an instance where I hated/felt ashamed of the language I spoke, I would like to clarify that I am very proud of all my languages, as they represent my identity. There have just been some obstacles that made me question my linguistic love, but these obstacles made this love stronger.
The following text is an op-ed explaining why it is actually possible to hate the language you speak. As stated above, I descriptively narrated my personal experiences to support this argument, hence the use of an op-ed genre. Through being vulnerable to you, I hope you understand my position (if you have not been in it yourself) as to why I felt ashamed of my native language. For a heads-up, I also included some historic examples to compare different environments that could invoke linguistic shame, but I feel as if my personal narration will resonate with you more, as it is personal!
My essay met the requirements of the prompt because I used multiple rhetorical strategies to get my argument across, such as narrating, describing, comparing, and analyzing cause and effect. I go into more detail on my choices with these rhetorical strategies in my part 3 analysis.
For now, I hope I can share my perspective with you on language love/hatred and provoke thoughts in you when it comes to your language love journey.
Sincerely,
Yumna Ahmed
Rhetorical Analysis Argument
Can you Speak the Language but also Hate it?
The controversy concerning if one can hate the language he/she speaks doesn’t lie in the language itself, but the external factors defining and/or influencing that language. You cannot control the language you are born with, and as a result, no one is born hating the language they speak. In fact, when babies learn to speak in their own, unique ways, that’s all they want to do! So, what causes a person to hate the language they were born speaking? What causes this hatred, or for better words, shame, in their mother tongue?
| When I was 9, I was speaking to my mother in Urdu (my mother tongue), as I always do. I never really thought much of speaking Urdu in public, as I was taught to speak the language my parents understood best. Suddenly, a man behind me began loudly cursing at my mom and I, telling us to stop talking in our “ugly terrorist” language. This stuck with my vulnerable 9-year-old mind for life, and I began speaking Urdu less and less. Now, this encounter is one of the extreme ones, but bilingual children struggle daily with the “two worlds” they live in when it comes to language. On one hand, they want to speak their mother tongue to stay true to their identity, but on the other, they get sneered at by schoolmates when speaking a language that is unfamiliar to them. When your language, your pride, identity, and means of communication gets shunned daily, it is the sad truth that you begin to hate it. This can be seen with the Europeans destroying the relationship between the Native Americans and their language. The government tried to eliminate the Native American culture, including the languages, by forcing English. In some tribes, if the Native Americans resisted speaking English, they were beaten to death. It is proven with the extinction of several Indigenous languages that eventually, even the Natives hated their language, and they stopped speaking it completely. Here, linguistic self-hatred was forced. A German post World War II could feel so ashamed of Germany, they feel disgust when speaking their mother tongue. There was no flaw with the German language prior to this event, but due to the toll the war took on millions, the language, identity, also was influenced. There was shame associated with the language. Living in America can cause an Arabic speaking immigrant to be ashamed of their Arabic, due to the threats/comments made to them daily about the way they speak. The same goes for a variety of people of different backgrounds. No one hates speaking English since no one seems to have a problem with it here in America! Thus, after careful analysis of the examples provided, to answer this argument more thoroughly, one can ask, “Can you speak the language, but also be ashamed of it?” The answer is yes. Shame of a language directly corresponds with shame when it comes to a person’s identity, since language is a person’s identity. Shame can be forced, built up, and self-proclaimed due to the environment one is in. |
Analysis of Rhetorical Strategies
The argument made in my rhetorical argument assignment aimed to address the question: Can people hate the language they speak? I wrote this as an argument because some people may have never had the feeling of hating the language they speak, whereas other people face this internal conflict daily. Thus, my intended audience was a broad group of people (as everyone speaks at least one language) who either face the conflict of linguistic self-hatred or don’t. The argument just brought a unique perspective on language to multiple groups of people. Since I have had experiences with hating the language I speak, I decided to give my personal perspective in the form of an op-ed newspaper page. I shared my opinion with a personal anecdote and a few historical references to support that linguistic self-hatred/shame does and can exist. Of course, as said before, this was my opinion, so I found it fitting to write it in the op-ed, where this genre could be thought provoking (my purpose) because I feel the opinions around you can influence your own opinions significantly.
To appeal to my audience, I narrated a time I was vulnerable and felt ashamed of my language. This narration was my first rhetorical strategy as putting the audience in my position through descriptive storytelling invoked a sense of pathos (I hope) and helped me connect with the audience. I began with a common setting, the post office, and described my thought process when a man started cursing at me for speaking another language. To describe my thoughts during this moment, I compared how I felt about my language before and after this encounter. Before, speaking my mother tongue in public was second nature to me. After the encounter, I emphasized the feeling of shame that was brought upon me, and that has stuck with me ever since. I used the personal anecdote as my first rhetorical strategy because I felt it would capture my audience’s attention the best.
To be transparent, I was unsure if my personal anecdotes would be enough, so I looked to using historical examples of when people of different cultures hated their language. I attempted to analyze what caused the Native Americans and Germans to hate their language, and what effect this has on my argument of linguistic self-hatred. I compared different ways these people were ashamed of their language (self-proclaimed shame and forced shame) to provide more examples of why it is possible to hate the language you speak. After some reflection, I realized narrating and describing my own experiences created a stronger argument as I could better convey the feelings I was trying to get across to my audience. To improve my argument, I could narrate even more of my personal experiences of when I was ashamed of my language, and then maybe compare it to times when I have felt proud of my language to address both sides of the argument.
In summary, I used narrating, describing, comparing, and analyzing cause and effect to support my argument that one can hate the language they speak. I did not even realize I used narrating and describing a process as a rhetorical strategy until this reflection, whereas I was aware and tried to directly compare and analyze cause and effect to prove my point.
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