Aria Memoir Of A Bilingual Childhood Summary

“Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood” by Richard Rodriguez highlights the differences between public and private language use. Within paragraph five of his essay,
Rodriguez claims, “[i]t is not possible for a child–any child–ever to use his family’s language in school. Not to understand this is to misunderstand the public uses of schooling and trivialize the nature of intimate life–a family’s ‘language.’” Rodriguez builds his claim through the use of amplification throughout. With attention to this, it can be shown that this is essential to his piece, with respect to this particular claim he is making. Amplification is used frequently throughout the memoir, such as in the claim stated before. Rodriguez repeats the words ‘child’ and ‘family’s

This shows the main parts of his claim, the connection the author is making between children and the use of language between home and school. In addition, another example of amplification can be shown in the following quote: “Spanish seemed to me the language of home. (Most days it was only at home that I’d hear it.) It became the language of joyful return” (Rodriguez, 306). Here, Rodriguez emphasizes the words ‘home’ and ‘language.’ By doing this he is able to provide evidence to his claim, through showing how his home language (Spanish) was a part of only his home life, and not in school. Richard Rodriguez is able to successfully use rhetoric to further his claim of a child being unable to use his home language in school, through the use of amplification, providing an overall increased effectiveness in the power of his words.

Richard Rodriguez’s essay, “Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood," highlights the differences between public and private language use. Within his writing, Rodriguez claims, “[i]t is not possible for a child–any child–ever to use his family’s language in school. Not to understand this is to misunderstand the public uses of schooling and trivialize the nature