-
Ariel Dorfman. discusses the topic of bilingualism in America. The writer agrees with the idea of being a bilingual country. He came to the United States, from Argentina when he was younger and had to learn the English language. Knowing both languages (English and Spanish) has ended up benefiting him in some way throughout her life. Therefore Ariel Dorfman thinks that bilingualism is a great idea as it has benefitted him throughout his life. This shows us that her attitude towards bilingualism is positive. A quotation from the text that backs up my statement about his thoughts about bilingualism
“The bilingual method, in spite of what its detractors claim, does not imprison a child in his or her original language. Rather, it keeps it alive in order to build bridges to English. The immersion method, on the other hand, wants youngsters to cut their ties to the syllables of their past culture.”
This quotation gives us a positive recall from the writers perspective, he believes that it is a great idea, in which it creates these “bridges” to the English language, and the bilingual thought also gives the bilinguals a feel of their past cultures at the same duration.
-
The writer Ariel Dorfman conveys his opinion through three basic appeals and they are logos, pathos and ethos, these three appeals persuades the reader in reading the text.
First of all I will start of with pathos the writer uses a lot of emotion throughout the text when she explains her life. Ariel Dorfman makes the reader feel his emotion when reading the text about how he became bilingual. For example the part of the text when he uses his personal life to capture the minds of the reader. “I first suffered the immersion method in 1945 when I was 2 1/2 years old. My family had recently moved to New York from my native Argentina, and when I caught pneumonia, I was interned in the isolation ward of a Manhattan hospital. I emerged three weeks later, in shock from having the doctors and nurses speak to me only in English, and didn't utter another word in Spanish for 10 years.”
This quotation from the text shows us how he uses her personal life in order to capture the emotion from the reader. This makes the reader feel sympathy for the writer and therefore read on.
Ariel Dorfman uses ethos in help to persuade readers into believing what she believes. The writer does this through a number of ways. As she herself is from a foreign country, an immigrant to America she knows how it feels to learn a second language, she has learnt how to balance two cultures, making sure that she does not forget who she really is and where she originates from, by not leaving her native culture.
“ I have developed a linguistic ambidexterity that I will be the first to admit is not at all typical. Even so, it is within reach of others if they start early enough, this thrilling experience of being dual, of taking from one linguistic river and then dipping into the other, until the confluence of the two vocabularies connects distant communities. This is an experience I wish all Americans could share.”
Through this quotation I believe there is shown ethos in the way that bilingualism “connects distant communities”.
Logos is the last appeal, which I wish to use to convey the writers persuasive style of writing. He uses logos in order for the readers to obtain the idea of factual and logical information. Logos is used for the reader to see the obvious meaning of a situation as an example it is used in paragraph ten
“If people could realize that immigrant children are better off, and less scarred, by holding on to their first languages as they learn a second one,”
This quotation is logical in the sense that of coarse if you are known to more than one language then you are able to realize the different cultures in which your languages are specified. By this then you are far better of than just knowing one language, when you can learn two.
-
The writer is very effective in persuading his audience to realize that bilingualism is a far better solution to the world rather than being monolingual, in the sense that you are more open to other cultures and exposed to more than one culture. Ariel Dorfman uses a number of persuasive techniques in order to capture and fortify people’s attention. As the writer uses the three basic appeals pathos, ethos and logos which are all three effective in persuading people to “join the same boat, as he is on”. He uses formal dictions to gather the reader’s emphasis. The text is well laid out and structured to perfection. To conclude everything, as a bilingual myself I thought that this idea Ariel Dorfman perseveres is great and understandable.
by
haraldhvalkofgmailcom (student)
