How important is language to the poets identities in Search for My Tongue and Unrelated Incidents?

'Search for My Tongue' starts off conversational 'You ask me what I mean by saying I have lost my tongue'. It then becomes more descriptive when she moves into her dream and gets closer to her mother tongue 'it grows back, a stump of a shoot grows longer, grows moist, grows strong veins'. This is because she is getting more comfortable because she is able to speak using her first language. She uses Gujerati in the middle of English by putting phonetics in English underneath the fancy and decorative Gujerati '(may thoonky nakhi chay)'. This shows that her language is sandwiched between English, trapped, imprisoned and suppressed. The end lines of English are very descriptive because she has got her first language back and she is extremely happy 'Everytime I think I've forgotten, I think I've lost the mother tongue, it blossoms out of my mouth.' She uses the word 'blossom' this is a pretty, celebratory and joyous word to show her happiness.

Similarly 'Unrelated Incidents' focuses on language and identity. The poem is long and thin like an autocue showing that he is newsreader. This shows that it's someone else's words and that he is becoming someone else. The poem starts off using elements of Standard English for example 'this is the six a clock news'. Then, when he gets angry his dialect becomes stronger, 'voice lik wanna yoo scruff, if a toktaboot thi trooth'. It's narrow and long to reflect the history of language, society and power and the narrow mindness of those who believe dialects are inferior 'scruff'. If you talk with a dialect you are scruff and inferior.

In 'Search for My Tongues' the language begins simple and conversational and then becomes more descriptive as she moves into the dream. At the beginning it's very conversational, 'You ask me what I mean by saying I have lost my tongue'. This reflects what the poem is about. The extended metaphor is then introduced. The poet then uses alliteration like 'two tongues' which creates the feeling like your struggling and tries to make the reader actually experience this. The metaphor for language, 'tongue' is used to make it more of a physical process. Then another effective metaphor 'foreign tongue', to give the impression that it is a stranger. Another powerful metaphor used to describe the death of her tongue is 'rot'. She then uses the metaphor 'spit' to show how disgusting her tongue is and that she has to get rid of it. As she gets her mother tongue back her writing gets a lot more descriptive and she uses a lot more metaphors and some alliteration. One metaphor she uses is 'it grows back, a stump of a shoot' she is matching her tongue to a flower or plant. This metaphor is also alliteration 'stump of a shoot' which creates an effect of it growing back. There is also some rhythm 'it ties the other tongue in knots' which sounds punchy like a fight. The poet then uses some repetition for example 'spit it out' this is to show how awful she feels about her foreign tongue.

Similarly in 'Unrelated Incidents' it begins using Standard English then the dialect becomes stronger. 'This is thi six o'clock news'. As the poem progresses the dialect becomes stronger and less Standard English is being used and he uses phonetics' toktaboot thi trooth'. The rules of punctuation are rebelled against 'thirza right way ti spell ana right way ti tok it'. The poet spells most words as he would say it and uses phonetics. He also rebels by starting a new sentence without a capital letter. The poem lacks any descriptive imagery because he is angry and frustrated. Repetition of 'scruff' is used because the poet wants to get across what he thinks of the news readers and the history of language.

I think she has written the poem to show her feelings to other people and to put across her view. I agree with this because I think everyone should have there own personal view. I have learnt that no matter how long you speak a different language you will always remember your first language.

I think he has written the poem to show to other people how he feels about news readers and the history of languages. I agree with this because again everyone should have their own views. I have learnt that the way people speak is not a way to judge people.

Josh Hartley