In Public and Private Language, by Richard Rodriguez the essay reveals his years in learning a foreign language that gives him a particular identity. His techniques in writing this essay rely more on recall and foreshadowing as he creates a flow in a timeline that allows the reader to see more of an impact on his life and how he is affected. For him he argues that learning English became easier once his family had joined in with it. He argues that “they do not seem to realize that there are two ways a person is individualized. So they do not realize that while one suffers a diminished sense of private individuality by becoming assimilated into public society, such assimilation makes possible the achievements of public individuality. By learning to cope with an English speaking society Rodriguez becomes stronger and has a public individuality.
In Mother Tongue by Amy Tan, Tan learns that being integrated with English at a young age can be impacted in several manners. She mainly took it with her mother as no “English is like her mothers.” Because of this English tan is able to see something that most Asian learning children are not. Tans technique in writing this essay have the same effect as Rodriquez in that she uses recall and some foreshadowing to encourage a positive growth in what she had been taught. Using English as a backdrop tan also speaks of what her