‘Search For My Tongue’ (Edexcel IGCSE English Literature)

‘Search For My Tongue’

Below you will find a guide to Sujata Bhatt’s poem titled ‘Search For My Tongue’ from the Edexcel International GCSE English Anthology (part 3: unit 1, section B). This guide includes:

• Overview: a line-by-line breakdown of the poem, including its possible meanings and interpretations

• Form, structure and language: an exploration of the techniques and poetic choices that Sujata Bhatt has used

• Themes: an exploration of the themes and ideas in the poem

• Comparing poems: suggestions on which poems to compare it to

Overview

To answer an essay question on a poem, you must understand what it is about. The overview section includes:

• A summary of the poem 

• A “translation” of the poem, section-by-section

• A commentary of each of these sections, outlining Bhatt’s intention and message

A summary of the poem ‘Search For My Tongue’ 

The speaker explains the idea of having two tongues and losing one — the mother tongue. This, of course, is metaphorical but the speaker goes on to explain that, just when they think they have “lost” their mother tongue, it grows back and blossoms, implying her mother tongue is in fact a part of her.

‘Search For My Tongue’ analysis

Lines 1–4

Translation

• The speaker begins by repeating a question that she has been asked and asks the reader a question in return

Bhatt’s intention

• The speaker is addressing someone directly with the personal pronoun “you”

• By redirecting the question back to the reader, the speaker appears defensive and wants the reader to understand how she feels:

  • The speaker tries to create empathy for people who are bilingual

• The speaker uses a metonym by using the word “tongue” to represent language

• The image of “two tongues in your mouth” is shocking and creates an unpleasant thought:

  • It could also suggest that those with more than one “tongue” find it difficult to create enough space to speak one language, let alone two

• The first few lines establish the central conflict in the poem as the speaker wrestles with the concept of having two tongues and being able to use both:

  • The speaker illustrates this struggle by asking the reader how they would cope

Lines 5–9

Translation

• The speaker tries to get the reader to imagine the struggle of losing a tongue and not being able to use the other one

Bhatt’s intention

• The speaker asks the reader to imagine losing their “mother tongue”:

  • The phrase “mother tongue” suggests a deep personal connection to the language she has been brought up knowing 

• The speaker suggests that, after losing the mother tongue, it is difficult to “know the other”, which she called “the foreign tongue”:

  • The phrase “the foreign tongue” emphasises the fact that the speaker does not feel like it belongs to her and lacks a familiarity that the “mother tongue” had

• The speaker articulates her difficulty in using both tongues “together” even though she admits that she “thought that way”:

  • To illustrate this difficulty, the speaker asks the reader to think about having two literal tongues in their mouth

• The writer alternates between enjambment and end-stopped lines which could reflect the tension between the mother tongue and the foreign tongue 

Lines 10–16

Translation

• The speaker explains what happens to the mother tongue when the foreign tongue dominates

Bhatt’s intention

• The connective “And” at the start of line 10 conveys the speaker’s desperation and desire to get her feelings across 

• The speaker states that “if you lived in a place you had to speak a foreign tongue”, which suggests people may be forced to abandon what is familiar in order to assimilate

• The speaker describes in detail what happens to the mother tongue when it stops being used:

  • The word “rot” creates an unpleasant image

• After the tongue has rotted, she is forced to “spit it out”:

  • The repetition of the speaker emphasises the extreme nature of the act

  • The speaker has had to discard her mother tongue

• This action is powerful as it suggests a vital part of the speaker has died with her mother tongue

• However, while she believed she may have spat it out, line 16 suggests that this may not entirely be the case

Lines 17–30*

Translation

• The speaker changes the language to Gujarati, her mother tongue

*Please note that the Gujarati script has been omitted from the text above and only includes the transliteration

Bhatt’s intention

• Lines 17–30 include the transliteration of what she says in her mother tongue and the original poem also includes the lines written in her native language, Gujarati:

  • This helps those who are unable to read Gujarati as they can still sound out the words in her native tongue, even if they do not know what it means

• This stanza invites the reader to experience her language and her “mother tongue”

• It also offers an insight into how her native language cannot truly be repressed

• The speaker is full of pride as she speaks in her mother tongue and, by including the transliteration, invites the reader into a word that may seem foreign to them but familiar to her:

  • The speaker, therefore, is forcing the reader to experience the difficulties of speaking a foreign tongue

• Some of the Gujarati lines rhyme, which adds a melodious rhythm and flow to the speaker’s mother tongue:

  • It indicates how comfortable the speaker feels when she uses her mother tongue

Lines 31–38

Translation

• The speaker translates what she said in Gujarati and describes how her mother tongue grows back and blossoms

Bhatt’s intention

• The poem uses the extended metaphor of a plant by describing “a stump of a shoot” growing and how the “bud opens”

• The repetition of the word “grow” suggests the tongue growing and becoming healthier 

• This stanza is in contrast to the earlier stanza, which describes the tongue as rotting and dead:

  • Instead, while she dreams, her tongue grows and comes back to life

• The speaker realises how powerful her mother tongue is, for whenever she believes it has died, it “blossoms”:

  • The word “blossoms” creates an image of something beautiful and appealing

  • The poem ends with the realisation that the speaker’s mother tongue is a powerful part of her

Form, structure and language 

When you consider how Sujata Bhatt uses form, structure and language, try to link your analysis of these elements to focus on how she presents her ideas and why she has made these choices in ‘Search For My Tongue’. You will gain more marks if you focus on Bhatt’s themes rather than on individual poetic techniques. 

Here are some suggestions for key aspects of the poem you might want to consider: 

Form

This poem does not follow a traditional or fixed form. The poem is written in 3 stanzas with the middle stanza being written in Gujarati and a transliteration of Gujarati.

Structure

The poem is written in three stanzas with the first and final stanza written in English. The second stanza, however, is written in the speaker’s native language, Gujarati.

Language

The writer uses language effectively to illustrate the struggles she goes through when alternating between languages.

Themes

While it is important to know the poem really well, this is not enough as all the questions in the exam encourage a personal response. You must, therefore, be confident in your understanding of the themes, main ideas, settings, situations and events depicted. Context is not explicitly assessed but it is important that you have an awareness of background information that is relevant to the main themes in the poem as it can help you develop a sustained, critical understanding of the text. The reason why this is important is because you need to make sure you are able to demonstrate individuality and insight in your answer. In order to help you do this, the section below has been divided into two main themes that Bhatt explores:

• Language and Identity

• Immigration and Sense of Belonging

Language and Identity

• ‘Search for My Tongue’ was published in 1988 in Sujata Bhatt’s collection of poems called Brunizem:

  • Her poems take inspiration from a range of cultural influences and languages as Bhatt was born and spent her childhood in India and then immigrated to the United States

• It can be suggested that Bhatt’s multicultural perspectives on language, culture and art stem from her own life experiences:

  • Gujarati is Bhatt’s mother tongue and she has translated Gujarati poetry into English

• The poem’s speaker is someone who is living in a country that is not native to her and so she has to speak in a foreign tongue:

  • The poem highlights how difficult it is for the speaker to speak in a foreign tongue and how it negatively impacts her mother tongue

• The Gujarati section is the speaker’s attempt at getting the reader to experience what speaking in a foreign tongue is like:

  • The speaker includes the transliteration to ensure the reader is able to sound out the words and experience the complexity of a language that is not their own

• In the final stanza, the speaker translates the Gujarati stanza and describes how her mother tongue grows back, like a flower, in her dreams suggesting that her native tongue revitalised her

• The poem ends on a positive note with the speaker’s joy at her tongue growing back 

Immigration and Sense of Belonging

• ‘Search for my Tongue’ highlights the immigrant experience and their struggles trying to assimilate in a new country while trying to retain their heritage as their identity

• In the first stanza, the tension between a new identity and the speaker’s own is evident:

  • The struggle culminates in her “mother tongue” rotting and dying

  • This graphic image highlights how losing such an intrinsic part of oneself is both painful and unnatural 

• The phrase “you could not use them both together” suggests the speaker’s new environment does not allow for bilingualism:

  • She is forced to speak in the foreign tongue in order to belong

• The question “if you had two tongues in your mouth” is an unpleasant image:

  • It reflects the struggle immigrants are faced with by having to choose between their native language and a foreign one

• However, the speaker suggests that no matter how hard she tries or is forced to change, her mother tongue will not only grow, but blossom

• The final message is that both tongues can be used despite social and personal pressures to create a new identity 

Comparing poems

In your exam, you will be required to compare two poems from the anthology so you must have a good knowledge of poetic form, content and meaning to compare the poems effectively. 

You must be able to explore links and connections between texts, which includes looking at both poets’ use of language, form and structure. 

 In ‘Search for My Tongue’, Bhatt’s main ideas are centred around language and identity; therefore, the following comparisons would be a good starting point:

• ‘Search for My Tongue’ and ‘Poem at Thirty-Nine’

• ‘Search for My Tongue’ and ‘Half-caste”

For each pair of poems, you will find:

• Comparison summary 

• Similarities and differences between the ideas presented in each poem

• Evidence and analysis of these similarities and differences

‘Search for My Tongue’ and ‘Poem at Thirty-Nine’

Comparison summary:

Both poems deal with the theme of identity. ‘Search for My Tongue’ explores the idea of identity through language. However, ‘Poem at Thirty-Nine’ explores identity through the speaker’s memories of her father.

Similarities:

Differences:

‘Search for My Tongue’ and ‘Half-caste’

Comparison summary:

Both poems are about cultural identity. ‘Search for My Tongue’ explores identity through language, whereas in John Agard’s poem, ‘Half-caste’, the speaker focuses on identity through language that can be offensive.

Similarities:

Differences: