 Hello and welcome to a summary of all you need to know about the poem Search for My Tongue by Sujata Bhatt. I'll explain the meaning related to this poem as it appears in part 3 of the Pearson-Edexcel International GCSE anthology. Now, do bear in mind that, in contrast to part 1 of the anthology which featured only none fiction texts and part 2, which was a mix of fiction short stories and poems, part 3 of this anthology exclusively features poems alone. So in this video, I'll highlight key language and literary devices used in the poem and you'll learn how to analyse it. So let's get started. Now what I'll do is I will read through different verses within this poem and stop every so often to point out important techniques that you should be aware of. So let's begin. You asked me what I mean by saying I have lost my tongue. I ask you, what would you do if you had two tongues in your mouth and lost the first one, the mother tongue? I could not really know the other, the foreign tongue. You could not use them both together, even if you thought that way. And if you lived in a place you had to speak a foreign tongue, your mother tongue would rot, rot and die in your mouth until you had to spit it out. I thought I spit it out, but overnight while I dream. Now in this first stanza, this is a really, really powerful poem that makes us and really triggers us to think about what it really means when we consider language and our identity. Now the title of the poem itself, Search for My Tongue, really shows a central role that language plays in all of our identities and especially how this can be a very tumultuous process if one immigrates to a new country. Now of course, this title is a metaphor for one's feeling of loss of identity when they migrate to a new country where they have to adopt a different language entirely. Now the opening nine of this first stanza, you ask me what I mean when I say I've lost my tongue. The first person pronoun I illustrates that this is a dramatic monologue. Moreover, the repetition of the second person pronoun you is conversational. You ask me what I mean, what would you do if you had two tongues in your mouth? And this repetitive use of second person pronoun is quite conversational but also it's quite confrontational. Now the enjambement at the end of the first sentence in the first verse speeds up the pace of this poem. Now the second line, when the speaker states I have lost my tongue. Now this metaphor is really powerful because it shows that they feel like they've lost their cultural identity by shedding their original language and learning a new language. Then they state I ask you and the Cesare here shows us their frustration. We really start sensing their feeling of frustration and anger. They then state what would you do and the alliteration here is quite forceful. It's quite accusatory and it shows their anger and having to shed their own mother tongue in order to adapt to a new culture. And then they mention if you had two tongues and the metaphor here is for people who are bilingual, they can speak two languages, the original mother tongue and of course the new language in their adoptive country. Now in line five the speaker states lost the first one. Now this is referring to the mother tongue and we get the sense that this mother tongue is seen by the speaker as quite nurturing, very protecting and of course very tied to the identity. And then they further mention that this is the mother tongue and the repetition of the word tongue in this poem is really powerful because it shows just how preoccupied the speaker is with how language shapes her identity. Now in line six they then state you cannot really know the other, the foreign tongue and this emphasizes that the second language that they have to adopt in the new country is really really alien and it's a difficult process to adapt to adopting this language. Moreover they then use a pre-modifier foreign to describe this new tongue, this new language and this gives us the sense as readers that this new language is imposed on the speaker. Moreover in line eight the speaker further emphasizes that this is imposed on them because they then state you could not use them both together and this shows that there's a conflict between the languages that she adopts between both languages, her mother tongue and her foreign tongue and she feels almost like she's forced to choose one. Now in line nine there's the conditional clause which is repeated if if and what this does is it really emphasizes just how uncertain the speaker feels but also just how difficult this process of adaptation has been for them. Then they state and if you live in a place you had to speak. Now again this shows this sense of imposition and she feels almost robbed of her freedom to speak her native language in this new country that she's had to move to. Then she mentions that once she adopts this new language her mother tongue, her original tongue rots and this is repeated twice, rot and die in your mouth. Now the repetition here emphasizes the decay of her original tongue and the verb rot shows just how horrific the experience is of losing her mother tongue. It feels like it's literally rotting in her mouth and it's a horrible process for her and then she further emphasizes this by talking about how the language then dies in her mouth and in many ways language in this case is really personified and it experiences this very brutal process of death. Moreover in line 14 there's the idea that the language not only has died her mother tongue has died in her mouth and now she has to spit it out and this is interesting because it's been placed in inverted quotations and inverted commas and then this is further repeated spit it out in line 15. Now this is a repetition of a violent disgusting verb of spitting out and this creates parallels, really interesting parallels with firstly not being able to say something, struggling with communication and words and of course this is a very common process when one is learning to speak a new language and of course the speaker probably experiences this when they were having to adopt the foreign tongue but also they end up spitting out maybe nonsensical languages and learning this new language. However on the other hand there's a double meaning to this reference spit it out because it also connotes xenophobia that people in her new country see her language as disgusting and they want it to be spat out and of course also xenophobic people sometimes when someone is struggling with communications they'll say oh spit it out and so the speaker, the narrator really fills up this process of learning a new language it's a very painful process. Then she states but overnight while I dream and prior to this of course in line 15 I thought I spit it out. Now when she states I thought I spit it out before she then tells us that she dreams this is an interesting use of non-standard English because it suggests a very weak understanding that the speaker might still have with English. Then as I mentioned overnight she then dreams and so this symbolizes a subconscious perseverance of her culture and her original mother tongue. Then in the following verse there's this interesting use of Gujarati. Now it's really interesting that Sajata Bhatt has put this stanza in between the English verses because what she's trying to do subconsciously is to show that at the speaker's core they still identify with the Gujarati heritage which reasserts itself and of course also this gives us a bit more of a clue of the speaker because it goes from being a general anonymous migrant speaker talking somebody who speaks a foreign language to now being really really specific to an Indian heritage individual who is specifically Gujarati. Now it's really interesting that a lot of Gujarati is used here as you can see and this is important when you consider it contextually because Sajata Bhatt herself is an Indian Gujarati speaker who experienced travelling and studying and working in the USA and the UK. Therefore perhaps arguably this poem is semi-autobiographical as it reflects her own experiences of having to leave her own individual country and adapt to the English speaking countries of the US and the UK and it charts her own personal struggles with having to change and having to adapt and presumably learn the English language but also become very much fluent in it and also see it perhaps as primarily reasserting her identity as perhaps more of an English speaker than a Gujarati speaker which would bring its own challenges. So let's continue. It grows back a stumper for shoot, grows longer, grows moist, grows strong veins it ties the other tongue in knots, the bud opens, the bud opens in my mouth it pushes the other tongue aside. Every time I think I've forgotten, I think I've lost the mother tongue. It blossoms out of my mouth. Now this final stanza is really powerful and it really in many ways is a translation for the previous Gujarati stanza especially for some of us who don't speak Gujarati. Now in this final stanza there's a repetition of the growth, the growth back of her mother tongue when she's learnt the new foreign tongue presumably English. She goes to sleep thinking that she's forgotten her mother tongue however it instead of it rotting further and going away it starts growing. It's a small shoot that grows back meaning and what this emphasises is that the speaker's core identity continues to reassert itself. It cannot be erased so easily. Furthermore the caesura hair is used as another turning point within the poem because once the speaker has thought that she's erased her own original identity she's adapted to the new culture. Actually this folctor, this turning point shows that even if she thinks she's erased her original identity it still comes back no matter how much she tries to ignore it and forget about it and move on. Moreover there's a lot of natural language used in the semantic field of nature here where there's a reference to shoot, bud and blossoms adds the extended metaphor of plants and the mother tongue is a plant from which other languages sprout and even if the speaker cuts it back it then grows back and it still shows how powerful her mother tongue is and her mother culture is. Moreover the mother tongue's power is shown even more so as we learn that it ties the other tongue in knots and the specification of her mother tongue shows that it succeeds over the invading second language. Moreover in 934 there's a reference to how this bud opens in my mouth and this connotes new life, the new life and the rejuvenation of her original mother tongue. Furthermore her mother tongue pushes the other tongue aside and this forceful word emphasises just how her Gujarati language is still more powerful than her adoptive language presumably English. Again the speaker states every time I think I've forgotten I think I've lost the mother tongue and this shows of course to some degree the terrible consequences of migration to new countries and westernisation which can lead to the difficulty in embracing a new identity and losing another identity. However also on the other side this offers a glimmer of hope because it seems that the speaker even if they're experiencing this difficulty they still have a core sense of who they are which reassets itself in spite of how much she tries to adapt her new culture. Now in the final line it blossoms out of her mouth. This shows the mother tongue is like a blossoming flower showing the beauty of her language and her appreciation for her own original mother tongue and her own original culture. So that's all. If you found this video useful do note we have an in-depth extensive course covering all the texts and poems in Parts 1, 2 and 3 of the Edexcel International GCSE anthology so make sure you sign up for the course for explanations on all the texts as well as model answers. Also check out our website www.firstreadoutors.com where you can find plenty of English revision sheets as well as model answers and online courses covering all the major English syllabuses including Edexcel, AQA and IGCSE. Thank you so much for watching.