Cover Letter

During Phase 2 of the course, I learned about techniques to efficiently analyze texts’ rhetorical strategies and analyze what authors are doing with the strategies that they use in their texts or presentations. I also learned how I can use these rhetorical strategies myself to appeal to specific intended audiences. During the phase, I created texts on events in “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan and Saleem’s “Why I keep speaking up, even when people mock my accent”, using rhetorical strategies to appeal to audiences. The audience of the meme I created on “Mother Tongue” were readers of the text who may relate to language related discrimination, which I appealed to by showing in the meme how the hospital did not care about Amy’s mother becaues of her accent, and the purpose was to portray the issue to the readers of the text of how Amy’s mother was treated unfairly due to her accent while she tried to get an update on her medical condition. 

In the meme I created for “Why I keep speaking up, even when people mock my accent”, my intended audience was those who do not think it is acceptable or normal for people to have the freedom to do whatever they want or work in whatever area they like to because they have an accent that is not standard, and people who can also relate to being treated differently or mocked due to an accent. I appealed to this audience by using the meme to express how Saleem’s emotions and confidence were affected when he was mocked due to his accent.

The most important insight I learned during this phase were how to recognize the strategies authors and speakers use in their texts or videos which allows you to better understand the message certain texts are trying to convey and can also protect you from being misinformed as a reader. The concept that was most impactful to me in this phase is rhetorical strategies. This is because understanding the correct context of use of certain rhetorical strategies is a very important tool in improving my writing and also analyzing texts and videos created by other authors.

This phase allowed me to achieve 2 of the learning outcomes. The first outcome, I achieved was to “Explore and analyze, in writing and reading, a variety of genres and rhetorical situations”, since the phase allowed me to learn to analyze and use rhetorical strategies tailored to certain genres and intended audiences. The second outcome I learned during the phase was to “Recognize and practice key rhetorical terms and strategies when engaged in writing situations”, because the phase involved analyzing texts and recognizing the strategies that authors make use of in their texts and analyzing what these strategies do and how they appeal to audiences and convey an author’s purpose.  

Saleem

For the part 2 assignment, I created a meme from Safwat Saleem’s “Why I keep speaking up, even when people mock my accent” TED talk. This meme showed Saleem’s change in emotion when somebody commented on his accent and performance in a voiceover he did for a video on the history of video games, whether it was a positive or negative comment. This was shown in his TED talk where he used the confidence level bar to show how his confidence was either boosted or damaged based on what viewers were commenting on the video he had done the voiceover for. 

The argument that is being made with the meme is also that it is not fair to put somebody down for their accent or voice, because not everybody needs to sound the same. Everybody comes from different backgrounds and experiences that shape the way they are, and people should not expect everybody to sound and speak the same way as everybody else, especially when it is not the person’s first language. People mocking and judging Saleem for his accent and voice negativelyt affected his self esteem and confidence in continuing with the career that he loved.

My intended audience with this meme are people who may think that it is not normal for people that have an accent to go into certain fields. The purpose of the meme is to express that it is fine for people to speak in different accents or tones, and it is not fair to put somebody down for certain differences they have because you do not know the effect it might have on the person, in this case, where Saleem was very self conscious about his voice and it impacted his confidence. I attempted to appeal to this audience by choosing to make a meme because it shows how peoples’ emotions and confidence can be affected by what people say about others. 

The rhetorical strategies I used in this meme were ethos and pathos. The use of ethos is by Saleem building trustworthiness during his TED talk. The first appeal to ethos is when Saleem introduces in his speech “I’m a visual artist” and shows some of his work. Stating and showing his experience and what he does is a strategy which builds the audiences’ trust towards the speaker. He also expresses how he loves to do voiceovers for animated characters, where he was a bear, a whale, a greeting card, frankenstein’s monster, and a voiceover on the history of video games where he did the voiceover as space invader, which is the same video that he was reluctantly checking for comments on and the event the meme is about.

I used pathos in the meme by showing how Saleem’s emotions were affected by negative comments appeal to the audience’s emotion by causing them to sympathize for Saleem and others who are mocked for their differences, and it is also appealing to pathos because the meme has a humorous element to it. Pathos is used in the meme by showing the initial picture of the guy who is happy while looking at somethting (representing Saleem looking at his comments when people were saying nice things about his performance), versus the guy who looks surprised or disappointed, which symbolized Saleem when he saw a comment mocking his accent, voice, or performance. This quick change in emotion can be related to by the audience who are emotionally affected by certain things that happen or that people say to them. 

Mother Tongue

For the part 2 assignment of phase 2, I created a meme about the event in “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan, where the hospital treated Amy’s mother unfairly. The meme expressed the change in attitude of the hospital employees in the story where the hospital said that they had lost the CAT scan after making her come into the hospital to look at the results while speaking to Amy’s mother,versus when Amy spoke to the hospital herself . Due to Amy’s mother’s accent, the hospital employees and doctors did not sympathize with Amy’s mother, apologize to her, or take any initiative to try to help her or try to find the CAT scan. As Amy Tan stated in the text: “And when the doctor finally called her daughter, me, who spoke in perfect English-lo and behold-we had assurances the CAT scan would be found, promises that a conference call on Monday would be held, and apologies for any suffering my mother had gone through for a most regrettable mistake.” This line expresses the same message of the meme, which is that the hospital did not give Amy’s mother any attention due to her accent, until Amy spoke herself with perfect english.The argument that I am trying to make is that it is not reasonable to treat people differently becauseof an accent, especially in this case where it was something medically related. This is very unfair toimmigrants who do not speak english as a first language and came to the U.S, and would be at a disadvantage to succeed and struggle more just because they do not speak the same way as everybody else. The intended audience of this meme are people who have read Mother Tongue and can relate to language or literacy discrimination which they directly experienced, or witnessed second hand. I attempted to appeal to this audience by creating a meme to outlines an event that took place in the story, and chose to create a meme because it expresses the event and how Amy’s mother’s accent

in her language caused her to be treated unfairly. I used the meme by showing 2 pictures of squidward (who symbolized the hospital employees) from a scene from sponegebob, where he is sleeping at first, then is shocked, which represented the hospital not caring when Amy’s mother spoke with an accent, versus when Amy spoke with standard english.The first strategy used in this meme is pathos, since the meme can be funny, cause the audience to sympahize with people who are treated unfairly because of their language differences, or relate to similar experiences they had with language and literacy related discrimination, which appeals to the audience’s emotion. The intended audience can relate to this meme by reminiscing language barrier related discrimination which they have witnessed or experienced themselves. The second strategy I use in the meme is logos, because the meme outlines how unreasonable it was for the hospital to treat Amy’s mother poorly just because of the way she spoke, which is an appeal to logic, and also backed up by the line I quoted before which proved how the hospital’s attitude changed after hearing somebody with a perfect english accent speak.