Rationale In Search For My Mother Tongue By Sujata Bhatt

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Rationale For part 1 of our English A course, we studied how bilingualism affects and shapes identity. I have chosen one of the bilingual poems- ‘Search for my Mother Tongue’ by Sujata Bhatt, analyzed in class as my primary text. By understanding the context of the poem, I was able to relate at a personal level to the poet- Sujata Bhatt who grew up in Pune but emigrated to the United States with her family. I have decided to write three consecutive diary entries from the point of view of a Hindi- speaking teenager who has moved to a foreign country, similar to Bhatt’s situation, and has to adjust to a new language and culture. This text type allows me to express the opinionated thoughts and personal concerns of the speaker fully as it’s target audience is none other than the writer of the diary herself. The multiple diary entries reflect the progression of experiences of the poem. In the first two entries, I have modeled the distressed and fearful tone of the poem as the speaker fears she is losing her identity. The third diary entry reflects the happy tone similar to that of the poem where the speaker has a similar moment to Sujata Bhatt, where the poet’s mother tongue returns to her. I have used a similar metaphor to the flower in the poem, but used a mango tree instead. The mango tree is the mother tongue with a strong foundation and the cuscuta is the foreign language which the teenager couldn’t fully know. This shows my understanding of the stylistic devices used in

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