Search For My Tongue

• Search for my tongue

  The central role that language plays in one's identity, especially when migrating to a new country
• Part 3 of the Pearson Edexcel International GCSE Anthology exclusively features poems
• Poem: Search for my tongue by Sujata Bhatt


  • Explores the struggle of losing one's mother tongue and adopting a new language when migrating to a new country
  • Uses powerful metaphors and language devices to convey the speaker's feelings
• The speaker has lost their mother tongue


  They feel they have lost their cultural identity
• The speaker: '"I ask you what would you do if you had two tongues in your mouth and lost the first one the mother tongue and could not really know the other the foreign tongue"'
• The speaker cannot use both their mother tongue and the foreign tongue together


  They feel forced to choose one language
• The speaker's mother tongue "rots" and "dies" in their mouth


  They have to "spit it out"
• The speaker dreams of their mother tongue reasserting itself
• The poem includes Gujarati text
• The speaker's mother tongue (Gujarati) grows back


  It cannot be erased easily, it reasserts itself
• Imagery and metaphors in the final stanza

  • Describe the mother tongue as a plant that grows back, blossoms, and pushes aside the foreign tongue
• The poem offers a glimmer of hope - the speaker's core identity and mother tongue cannot be fully lost despite the difficulties of migration and adapting to a new culture