Jamila Lyiscott presented her spoken word essay to explain the importance of all languages. Lyiscott uses repetition and all three rhetorical appeals to emphasize the power of her three types of english.

Jamila Lyiscott’s video is about the different ways people speak English and how we change our “english depending on who we’re speaking to. 

Lyiscott repeats the word articulate to elaborate on how people view her english. She starts her spoken word exclaiming “Today a baffled lady observed the shell where my soul dwells and announced that I’m “articulate.” This being her first statement already shows the importance of her being called articulate. She then goes on by saying “Which means that when it comes to enunciation and diction I don’t even think of it ‘cause I’m “articulate.” She’s explaining how people automatically think that she’s a good english speaker based on one of hex ccc cr types of english. Then she repeats this word again when her father asks her a question and she says “my articulate answer never goes amiss.” This shows her confidence in her responses.

Lyiscott’s spoken word uses ethos to persuade her audience about her three types of english. She goes back and talks about different things like the fact that she has to switch her “language” and the way she talks with certain people so they can understand her. She states “This is the pending problem at hand” emphasizing on how that’s a problem that she has to change her tone of voice. 

Lyiscott uses pathos to show her expression throughout her different tones. She talks about how sometimes she has to “pause the intellectual sounding flow to ask “Yo! Why dese books neva be about my peoples?” Showing her passion about her culture but also mentioning she spoke it in her regular tone to show the importance in her question. Then she continues on by saying “Yes I have decided to treat all three of my languages as equals.”  This is when she connects her languages because all of them are just as important as the other. 

Lyiscott uses logos to demonstrate the logic that just because one of her languages sounds “hood,” it’s still just as important as the rest of them. She informs her teacher that “Now you may think that’s too hood, that’s not cool but I’m here to tell you that even our language has rules.” This shows the significance in her languages and how they’re just as useful and real as others.

Lyiscott justifies and elaborates on her poem to show all the factors about her life and language. She uses rhetorical strategies to justify her characters and language to educate people on her difference and how important it is to her.