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Rhetorical Devices In How To Tame A Wild Tongue

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In How to Tame a Wild Tongue, Gloria Anzaldua uses rhetoric and personal anecdotes to convey and persuade her argument that Latin Americans are forced to relinquish their cultural heritage, and to conform to white society. The evidence she provides comes in a variety of platforms, both literal and rhetorical. Rhetorical, being through emotional, logical, and credible appeals through her text. Literal being explicitly stated, without any further analysis necessary. When she utilises the modes of appeals, they are subtle within the texts, which leads the reader to analyse as they read. She conveys ideas of internalised oppression, involuntarily imposed upon to follow strict social rules, the act of people erasing cultural heritage, as well as the importance of embracing personal heritage. Throughout her essay, …show more content…

The statement she quoted from her mother shows a deeper meaning than just that of “sounding like a Mexican”, this actually shows the internalised oppression her mother holds. This implies that the same forces which act upon our author have also acted upon her mother, forcing her to conform to their standards otherwise she would be rejected by society. The internalised part comes from racism seen by Latin Americans through the early 1900’s (before the 1900’s, and even today as well), her mother was most likely forced by authority figures (teachers, general adults, her own parents). Her mother was taught that the world she knew as her heritage was “wrong” so her self-image was skewed as a result which forced her to project this self hatred onto her daughter (which in-turn, would cause a domino-effect until their entire future bloodline would be culturally ignorant as their heritage was erased by

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