“How Learning New Languages Has Shaped My Identity”


              France François’ article “How Learning New Languages Has Shaped My Identity” explains how moving to the United States and assimilating to a new language, as well as learning new languages and experiencing different cultures first-hand has shaped the way she sees the world. This personal essay audience’s is people who might be learning a new language or that have learned a new language and can relate to her experiences, but of course, since it’s on the internet making it accessible to everybody. France François is from Haiti and worked on several social issues regarding policymaking.
              Her tone is objective yet personal because she incorporates examples of phrases in her native language, English, and Spanish in order to help the audience understand how knowing different languages has affected her life. For example, on her first job in DC, when asked about her opinion on a project she answered with an indirect answer which caused confusion, but if she was speaking to her family it would have been totally fine. This appeals to her audience’s emotions because they can relate to her when she shares her experience learning and adapting to a new language and the way its spoken. 
              This text is relatable to me, because when I came to the United States and had to learn English it was really a culture-shock. The argument did persuade me effectively because the author explained every event from her life in detail which allowed it to be relatable to every person reading the essay.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

“3 Ways to Speak English”

Jamila Lyiscott has a four-minute ted talk and titles it “3 ways to speak English”. She is a renowned speaker and youth activist from New York who is trying to show not that articulating is good Eurocentric English but that in reality articulate is whatever English you do speak. Furthermore, that by speaking English that is different from “articulate” it doesn’t mean they are ignorant.   She’s persuading the audience to not judge anyone who talks different than normal articulate. Her audience is the people attending and Americans in general.   Lyiscott uses rhetoric by using different accents to differentiate the people she is talking about. She uses those forms of different English to also demonstrate how they talk. She uses rhetoric by using those accents without having to say who she is talking to or how she talks to that person because she demonstrates it. She uses that rhetoric to show that those three different ways of speaking English are as articulate and equal to ...
Read more

“American Multilingual: A National Tragedy”

              Franklin Raff’s article “American Multilingual: A National Tragedy” to inform and convince you that the multilingualism of this country is a tragedy and it’s leaving many immigrants ‘lost in translation’. It explained that the language barrier was immense for immigrants and it halted their financial progress. The audience are American citizens of any age or ethnicity, to make citizens feel empathy. The author is a Spanish-speaking Hispanic that has had some experiences with multi-linguistic dilemmas.               This writing uses rhetorical devices such as an appeal to emotions and logic, like when he starts to share statistics about the educational rate of Hispanics and then he proceeds to say “How does that feel?” to try and convince you emotionally and show you how misfortune Hispanics are. The statistics he provided for his appeal to logic show how Hispanics are not being educated enough, ...
Read more