Switching Languages: Translingual Craft, By Steven Kellman

Steven Kellman, author of Switching Languages: Translingual Writers Reflect on Their Craft, is a professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Kellman works as a professor in the department of English and specializes at many topics in his field. Some of the forms of literature he specializes in are comparative literature, modern and contemporary literature, the european novel, film and film theory, literary theory, biography translingualism, and post colonialism. From viewing the various topics in which Kellman specializes we the readers can assume that he is a very well learned individual. Also, we can make an assumption that he is very knowledgeable. In Kellman’s literary work on translingual writers he analyzes the beauty of being
Her writing is based on her views on sexuality and politics. She is a trilingual writer who is fluent in Hindi, English, and Malayalam. After reading her poem entitled “An Introduction” we the readers observe how Kamala exemplifies her self assertions perfectly through the use of figurative language. This piece is very well versed and shows the readers how confident she is in who she is. She fluently states how she is confident in who she was, who she is, and who she will become. This quality she holds is very inspirational to the readers because we are allowed to view her struggles and her successes and reflect on our lives and how we need to become more confident in ourselves as individuals. From this piece readers can learn not to be collectivists in such a demanding society that tends to group people based on their subcultures rather than as
One is that when one commits themselves to another language they start to lose a piece of their identity and become a new individual, however that occurs only when they begin to forget their own language. The second point that Buruma stated was that no language is ever pure. These two facts are very true. The readers realize that languages evolve and take on many forms as time progresses. We also realize that as we change things in our life we are changing our identity and molding ourselves, whether for better or worse. Julia Alvarez, native of the Dominican Republic, further proves the theories by Ian Buruma in her work “My English.” Through this piece she was able to exemplify how she went from Spanish, to Spanglish, to English all together. She became just another individual who lost herself while being assimilated to the American culture. The piece was very well written and exemplifies the true emotions behind her losing a piece of who she is. Which a lot of people can relate to because people assimilate to new things everyday; assimilation has become a normal aspect of