Jay Trivedi

10/19/20

Professor Mosher

Cover Letter 

It is no secret that having a paper or speech that is catered well to your audience is essential to the piece you are working on. The audience that I am tailoring to is my English class, but specifically the other classmates that I have in the classroom. The reason that I chose my English class as my audience, well, for one it is a paper due for English class, and while that may be the obvious answer, my classmates are also a part of the future of this generation. More importantly, they are a selective, diverse group that can represent different, ethnicities, race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. Having my English class meant that I would have to tailor certain things in my Essay to fit the audience. As you will later see, I used the information that they are college students to try and better fit my argument and show how the authors were communicating using different rhetorical strategies to their audience and used analogies, comparisons, and even included engagement while doing so.

Through this phase, I have gotten a better understanding on what it means to be surrounded by your cultural identity. More importantly, I learned how cultural identity impacts not only our lives,, but the lives around us. I was able to come to this conclusion by dissecting the pieces made by Saleem and Tan. I also learned how to dissect pieces by identifying rhetorical strategies used by the writer and see how that has impacted the piece. For the pieces that I specifically dissected, I was able to identify ethos and pathos as two rhetorical strategies as well as comparing how they were used in similar fashions and how they were different across the two pieces. 

Audience was a big concept that affected my writing for this phase. I not only had to identify the audience that writers such as Tam and Saleem catered their respective pieces to, but I also had to select the audience that I wanted to tailor my own essay to and see how I can use specific language to help tailor my piece to this audience. In order to dissect Tan and Saleem’s respective pieces, I had to get in the mind of them first. It was not enough to read their pieces and see how they used rhetorical devices to tailor their piece to their audience, but I rather had to understand their mindset to try and see why they used the  specific tone and language they did to emphasize certain elements of their work. While doing this, I was also able to pick up on strategies that I can also personally tailor my own paper to the desired audience.

“Explore and analyze, in writing and reading, a variety of genres and rhetorical situations.” This is one of the course learning outcomes that I am able to confidently say that I learned, or at least improved on doing. I was able to identify that different genres of pieces affected their purpose and saw the different rhetorical strategies that came with it. I was able to realize how different types of pieces benefitted different purposes expressed by the author. Similarly, I saw the advantages of using certain rhetorical strategies in different genres to better express one’s central idea and help tailor this to their audience.

 

Rhetorical Analysis of “Why I Keep Speaking Up” and “Mother Tongue” 

 

Audience: English classmates

 

Go ahead, and look around you. Well, we are unfortunately taking part in remote learning, but do not let this serve any less of a reminder about how diverse the country we live in today really is. New York City, specifically is one of the most diverse cities in one of the most diverse countries in the world. Every day, we see people of different color, who speak different languages, who may be a different gender, sex, or background in general from you. This is exactly what Safwat Saleem and Amy Tan express through their masterpieces, “Why I keep Speaking Up” and Mother Tongue” respectively. Each piece talks about their experiences and shares their stories of how their different backgrounds have impacted them throughout their life. Their main purpose that they both conveyed throughout their pieces was that it is not easy to go through the life of one that has a different cultural background than what is considered to be “normal” in this country. Despite them having a similar central idea, their pieces go much deeper than a basic central idea or common theme displayed throughout their work. In the video, “Why I Keep Speaking Up” (2016) by Pakistani filmmaker Safwat Saleem and “Mother Tongue”(1989) by Chinese American writer Amy Tan, the two narrators highlight the importance of diversity by using rhetorical strategies. They each present how their difference in background has shaped their specific identities and do this by connecting in various ways to their audience, specifically through the use of rhetorical devices such as Ethos and Pathos.

The narrator Saleem uses Ethos as a rhetorical strategy to not only help his central idea, but also to connect with his audience in a closer fashion. The use of Ethos can be detected throughout the Ted Talk with his deliberate use of personal branding. In the Ted Talk, he states,  “I had a much tougher time speaking. I could stutter for as long as I remember.” He makes sure to repeat this and emphasize the significance of his background in hope of gaining the audience’s trust, that is, he talks about his experience of being an immigrant himself to prove himself as “worthy” of talking about a sensitive topic in cultural identity. Saleem knows that with a Ted Talk with the title of “Why I Keep Speaking Up” that most of his audience will have a background that is “different than normal,” according to society, specifically relating to an accent or language barrier. Because he knows this, he is confident with his delivery when it comes to talking about how he previously felt shameful in his voice. Take this, for example, who would you rather have come out of a restaurant, a person with normal clothes or a person with a full white apron with a big, white chef hat? Obviously the person dressed in all white to resemble a chef will draw more attention, but more importantly be more credible as a speaker. This is the exact logic that Saleem uses to draw in his audience. Saleem emphasizes his shame that he felt towards his accent because he knows that his audience most likely feels a similar way towards their potential accent. Because my audience is to you, my English classmates, would you not feel more incentivized to listen to me give a speech on how to manage time better in college if I had a 4.0 rather than a 2.5? He continues to build credibility through the audience by expanding on how this shame impacted him in his childhood. This sets himself up to give examples, such as how he previously made funny YouTube videos, but then decided to stop because of a few negative comments. Saleem comes off as knowledgeable to his audience by showing why he is the one that should be listened to rather than someone who does not have a strong language barrier and an accent that held themselves back in their childhood. 

Tan also uses ethos across her text to show her audience her credibility and why she deserves a voice over someone else. In the text, Tan states, “I was giving a talk to a large group of people, the same talk I had already given to half a dozen other groups. My mother was in the room. I was saying things like, ‘The intersection of memory upon imagination.’” Amy Tan explains how she was speaking professionally while her mom was in the room. Tan’s mom was born in Asia and therefore did not grow up speaking English, but rather Chinese. Tan, on the other hand grew up in the U.S.A. and knows how to speak fluently in English without a foreign accent. Through this personal branding, it helps build a connection with the audience and the writer. Similar to Saleem, Tan’s audience also consists of people who face some type of language barrier, however, in the case of Tan, her audience is much more catered to people who have parents or relatives that face this barrier. Think to yourself, how many of your parents were born outside America. Now how many of you (classmates) were born in America. A big portion of you probably fit the criteria in which your parents grew up in a foreign nation and therefore spoke, what is called “broken” English while you have spoken relatively fluent English. Tan uses the rhetorical strategy, Ethos, to her advantage by showing the exigence of her story. She shows how her background is from America, but her mom does not share this same background. Tan’s use of Ethos sets up the story by describing how her mother spoke “broken” english, but was still intelligent, further connecting with the audience and highlighting such an important moment in the text. By using this, it connects her with the audience and builds trust because of similarities between them similar to how Saleem built trust with the audience by showing that the audience is not alone and helpless. Therefore, despite both Tan and Saleem using Ethos in their respective pieces to build a more trustworthy connection between the audience and them as well as sharing encounters that are relatable with the audience, they both use them differently to better show their respective purpose of the piece. 

The rhetorical strategy, pathos, can also be seen being utilized throughout the text for both Saleem and Tan. In what follows, Saleem’s use of pathos to impact the Ted Talk will be abundantly clear. Saleem states, “Hi, my name is so and so, what is your name? And I am just quiet, unable to respond. After some awkward silence, he says, “have you forgotten your name?’ and I am still quiet, and then slowly, all the people in the room begin to turn towards me and ask almost in unison, have you forgotten your name?(repeating)” Most people have nightmares about monsters, ghosts, and for our case, even failing a college assignment. However, Saleem describes this nightmare to show just how afraid and self-conscious he is about his voice. He uses vivid language as seen by the “have you forgotten your name?” repeating to show just how afraid he feels to speak to a stranger, much less, in front of the public. Hearing this would make most decent people feel empathy towards Saleem and would therefore connect with his emotion. Because the audience most likely also has experienced some type of language barrier, this connection of emotion would not necessarily only make them feel bad for Saleem, but also would connect to their personal experiences. This is exactly the objective of Saleem as he tries to show how something as minor as this can impact his everyday life. In the Ted Talk, Saleem repeats the phrase, “have you forgotten your name?” to further emphasize the emotion that was running through him. Saleem is able to illustrate to his audience how many people in the audience would see their heart racing, start to perspire, and overall feel very anxious when something like this were to happen. Because many of us have gone through something similar, we understand the feeling and through the use of repetition, vivid language, and personal experience Saleem is able to set up his purpose better through this use of ethos.

Similar to Saleem, Tan also uses Ethos as a rhetorical strategy to build a stronger connection between her audience and her. In the text, Tan states, “my mother was standing in the back whispering loudly, ‘Why he don’t send me check, already two weeks late. So mad he lie to me, losing me money.’ And then I said in perfect English, ‘Yes, I’m getting rather concerned. You had agreed to send the check two weeks ago, but it hasn’t arrived.’” Despite this not looking like much at first glance, it very much is a good use of ethos. Tan describes how her mother spoke broken English and therefore thought that people did not take her as serious, and this caused her mom to make Tan get on the phone to make a complaint. Because a good deal of the audience also has some type of relationship with a language barrier, whether that means through themselves or their parents, this not only serves as an example, which opens others’ eyes to the situation, but because this text is catered to a specific audience, this narrows into the audience’s personal experiences similar to Tan’s. In this experience specifically, Tan expresses how she had to talk, “in an adolescent voice that was not very convincing, “This is Mrs. Tan.’” Tan clearly details how she, herself did not desire to do this, but how she did it because it was necessary to her mom and understood the shame behind having a foreign accent and what a lot of society will label you as. As a member of the audience, you cannot help but feel bad for the mother who is self-conscious of her accent and understands that people do not take her as serious. Similarly, you realize the pain Tan goes through to see her mother like this and take on responsibilities not of her choice. Think about it this way. Many of you reading this have parents that are immigrants. If they can speak fluent English, great. However, the ones that have parents that do not speak fluent English, how many times have you had to speak to someone on the phone in replacement of your parents or even in person for that matter? I can remember ordering pizza from my phone since I was 8 years old. The pizzeria place would think its a prank call at first because of my high pitched voice, and so when hearing this personal experience by Tan, it not only highlights Tan’s story, but also becomes more descriptive and detailed in your minds as well. Hence, Saleem and Tan both use Ethos to appeal to the audience’s emotion by bringing their experiences back into real time as well.

In conclusion, Saleem and Tan both explain the importance of having pride in your background and show why diversity is not something to feel shameful about. They both do this in similar ways such as speaking on their experiences in an attempt to more closely connect with their audience. However, they also do this in unique ways by having different tones across their examples. Regardless of their strategies to support their claim, the two successfully present their central ideas by using Ethos and Pathos.