Search for my tounge

• “Search for my tounge” - suggests that the poet is in search for her identity - she lacks it
• "You” “I ask you” - direct address - engages and invites reader to image what it’s like - intended reader: people who don’t speak two languages
• • “lost my tounge“ - idiom = extended metaphor as if she literally loses her tounge/her first language
  • an idiom can only be understood in one language
• “two tongues in your mouth” - metaphor - stresses the difficulty and discomfort of speaking two languages
• • “mother tounge” - 1st language that closely links with her identity - the type of person you see yourself is closely linked to your mother
  • ”foreign tounge” - something alien/doesn’t belong to her/not something she can identity with
  • these two tounges are contrasted
• • “your mother tounge would rot,rot and die in your mouth until you had to spit it out. ” - imagery of death to describe her first language - fear that she’s going to lose it
  • repetition of “rot” emphasises her fear to the point she’ll feel like she’ll have to spit it out
  • harsh consonant sounds mirror the struggle/fight that her two languages have - encourages the reader to appreciate how difficult it is to hold onto your identity
• • “but overnight while I dream” - turning point
  • [writing in Gujurati in the next stanza] - also tried to translate how a non-Gujurati speaker could pronounce it in a phonetic way- encouraging the reader to grasp her experience as closely as possible - central stanza = stanza is central to her life
  • shared experience with the reader
• • “grows” - repetition
  • “a stump of a shoot“ “the bud opens in my mouth”
  • floral imagery of life - contrast to imagery of death in the 1st stanza
  • also describing her 1st language as beautiful through the use of floral imagery as her language is as beautiful as nature - watching a flower grow - highlighting the positive experience that realising that her language is still ther/even stronger
• • “It ties the other tounge in knots” - triumphant tone that her first language has won almost as if there was a battle beforehand - 1st language has completely overpowered her foreign language
  • “it pushes the other tounge aside” - battle - her mother younger will always win as it is deeply embedded in her - her roots/cultural heritage and no foreign language can compete
• • structural techniques:
  • 3 stanzas - middle stanza in Gujurati visualises mother language flooding back - unexpected
  • Volta - "but overnight when I dream” - indicates a triumphant tone and floral imagery in the latter stanza of life/growth
  • lack of rhyme - more conversational/serious tone
  • lack of meter = uncertainty when she’s in a foreign country - concerned about losing her heritage
• • themes:
  • identity
  • language
  • immigration
  • cultural heritage