Mute in an English Only World
Introduction
In his article, “Mute in an English-Only World,” Chang-Rae Lee tells the story of the challenges she faced in her childhood to depict the challenges faced by other people from other countries every day. He tells the story about the struggles her mother faced as an immigrant in a foreign country due to the language barrier. Even after practicing English for many years, she never learnt it well enough to be able to express her emotions using the language. In the article “Mute in an English-Only World,” Lee uses the pathos appeal to convince the readers of his argument.
The author tries to illustrate the difficulties that most immigrants have with English using the story of his mother’s struggles. It is clear that Lee used the Pathos appeal, a method that draws upon the emotions and sympathies of the reader, to make his argument (Rubinelli 2018 ). Everyone reading this book certainly feels sorry for Lee’s mother due to the challenges she faced, and this was the author’s intention while writing the story. Lee capture’s the readers’ emotions and makes them sympathize with him and his mother. The author also captivates the interests and imaginations of many people, especially those living in foreign countries and faced with language barriers. The reader can almost feel what the writer felt, as it is with the pathos appeal.
Lee narrated an incident when his mother walked into an English-butcher’s shop that was full of annoyed customers. She blanked out of the proper English words to use when ordering meat and the butcher moved to the next customer. This made her mother hastily walk out of the butcher shop feeling embarrassed and frustrated due to her inability to communicate in English. This incident prompts readers to sympathize with Lee’s mother. The fact that she could not even order meat in English meant that trying to speak the language often brought her embarrassments and frustrations.
The author explains how her mother felt about the English language when he writes, “For her English language was not very funny, it usually meant trouble and a good dose of shame, and sometimes really hurt” (Lee 1996). This makes the reader understand the immense suffering that Lee’s mother went through due to her struggles with the English language. The reader’s imagination is so much captivated emotionally that they too suffer in imagination; what Lee’s mother suffers. By using emotion, Lee convinces his audience and makes them understand that the language barrier is not as simple as a challenge as many presume.
Lee also not only uses the experiences of his mother but his own experiences and challenges as well to connect with the reader. “Five years ago she died of cancer, and some months after we buried her. I found myself in the driveway of my father’s house, washing her sedan” (Lee 1996). Here Lee uses his own experiences to bring out the pathos appeal. The part about his mother’s death has the reader sympathizing with him. The fact that she died of cancer makes the circumstances surrounding her death even more sympathetic. Every reader would be emotionally drawn to the story by this.
Conclusion
The pathos appeal is one of the best appeals one can use to convince an audience of their argument. People are naturally emotional and will be drawn to an argument that is presented to them by the creation of an emotional connection to the story by the writer. Lee tries to use this appeal while illustrating the challenges that many people face with English languages when travelling from different countries. Lee wanted people to recognize that other languages, too, need to be acknowledged by using the pathos appeal to make his argument.
