S: Daisann McLane is a travel writer and is multilingual. She is fluent in English, Spanish, and Cantonese.
O: McLane is on a bus in Japan, sitting next to Michiko, a Japanese lady who is shy in English. Daisann McLane recounts their polite, but awkward conversation that occurred until they both realized that they spoke Spanish and found a common ground allowing their conversation to blossom.
A: This piece is for everyone who travels, telling them that it is important to be bilingual because it opens so many doors when you travel. That third tongue allows you to get to know people, form relationships and see people in a new light.
P: This piece is to show people the usefulness of knowing more than one language. McLane recounts multiple times where knowing several languages has helped her greatly. This article shows that by having that other language, that third tongue, travelers can connect and discover a new adventure. Angela Carter wrote “Language is the power, life, and the instrument of culture, the instrument of domination and liberation”.
S: The subject of this article is in its most basic form language. Diving deeper into that though it pertains to the knowledge of multiple languages and being able to use that knowledge throughout your travels. Because English is such a popular lingua franca many people feel the need to attempt to speak it, but it is our job as travelers to not take our language for granted and to work to try and find that common ground.
Tone: Daisann McLane exhibits and informative and reflective tone throughout the piece. She reflect on several of her past experiences in which knowing that other language opened many doors and helped her get to know people in new ways. She becomes informative when she attempts to teach people about how important and helpful that common ground language can be. She especially pushes this when she recounts the tale of when she was in Yu Yuan Garden and could not manage to hail a taxi, she ended up finding a group of people, one of who also spoke Cantonese. This person was able to get her that cab, this would not have happened if either of them had not worked to learn Cantonese. Overall throughout the piece she really pushes “loving that Lingua Franca”.
Once again Daisann McLane proves her skill in crafting outstanding imagery. Throughout this piece McLane recounts her past experiences with vivid imagery. From her time on the bus with Michiko, while rolling through the Japanese country side in mid-autumn, they discovered Spanish as their common ground and that once shy women who struggled with English became outgoing and hilarious as they had an animated conversation in Spanish. Or when she was in Rajasthan, India wandering through a Jian temple and stumbled upon a group of ladies speaking in Spanish; she ended up having lunch with those ladies. Daisann McLane is an expert in being able to create astounding imagery that makes the reader live these experiences and pushes her point across even more. In this case bring out the importance of learning that new language and “Loving that Lingua Franca”