Articles choses:
Hsin Ni Sydney Ho, “Odd One Out”
Harita Bhatt, “Multicultural Music Education: The Pathway to a More Tolerant Society”
1). Target audience
For Odd One Out, the target audience is for people who speak both Mandarin and English,
along with others who interact with people who are bilingual. One point the writer mentions in
his opening paragraph is that people are surprised when they see he is from Taiwan but speaks
perfect English. There are many biases that people have in their minds and when someone who
is from some non-English speaking country speaks perfect english because their ethnicity hides
their language. This leads to the second article, Multicultural Music Education: The Pathway to a
More Tolerant Society, where the target audience is anyone who has ever had a bias of sorts
that have been applied to others. The writer targets these people because once people drop
their previous biases at the door, they open themselves to “a more tolerant society” as the writer
describes it. The two articles relate to each other since both start off by criticizing the biases
other people have applied to the writers themselves. There hypothetically is some overlap in the
target audiences since there is always someone that is interested in both styles of pieces. But
overall, these two articles call out to their respective audiences.
2). Purpose
In Odd One Out, the purpose is to describe the linguistic journey the writer goes through as he
is growing up. He documents how over time and location, Mandarin ended up going from a
safety net to a dying language that he hated. When he was learning English, Mandarin was
there to help her convey ideas he couldn't yet convey in English, but as English started taking
superiority over Mandarin, it faded away. The purpose in the other article is to make the
audience aware that disparity exists between cultures, and how to slowly chip away at it through
music. Just like Ho mentions superiority in the languages in his life, Bhatt explains how Western
classical music is seen as superior due to its high frequency in our lives. This feeds into the
purpose of her argument which highlights the similarities between Western and Indian classical
music and how the only difference is the cultures that created the music. Music should have no
superiority; just a mark of each culture on their interpretation of their own music. The two articles
are different in that Ho is speaking about her own personal experience, while Bhatt takes her
experiences and ties them into the greater scope of music to diversify her argument.
3). Genre / expectations
Odd One Out comes off as more of an autobiography, while Multicultural Music Expectations
falls into the informative/argumentative essay category. The biggest difference in the two articles
is the use of “I”. Ho uses “I” frequently as she is recalling previous experiences in her life and
showing their significance to herself in the present. Bhatt does not use “I” except for quotes she
gets from other articles to back up her argument. Speaking of, a big part of why Multicultural
Music Expectations falls into informative or argumentative is due to the high volume of sources
she uses. In every paragraph, she has at minimum one quote that defends or rejects her
argument that she is making. Ho on the other hand uses no outside sources at all: the only
source she uses is herself. With different uses of sources for both, they are still both credible.
Bhatt backs up her points through expert quotes that come from reliable sources and Ho uses
her life as a source. The genres used in both articles give the expectation that the reader gets to
learn something about Ho and her upbringing, while the reader expects to be swayed by Bhatt’s
argument to believe the point she is making.
4). Language / tone
In Ho’s writing, the language is very personal and the tone rather reflective: “However, I still
wasn’t very comfortable with speaking English because I couldn’t form proper sentences in my
head. During this time period, Mandarin was considered my mother tongue as it was what I
spoke with my parents and what I learned first” (Ho 1). Ho writes in chronological order, starting
off with detailing her experiences as a child, and then later transitions into adulthood. The only
time change is her introduction paragraph, which is explained by her present self to pull the
reader into her story. Bhatt’s language is informative and her tone neutral, since she is subtly
trying to sway the reader into accepting her argument: “As the world transitions from a collection
of different and disjunct ethnicities to a realm of multiculturalism the necessity of the ability to
understand other cultures becomes glaringly apparent” (Bhatt 1). She uses the credibility of her
sources to speak for herself, rather than using personal experience as pathos. The tone and
language relates to her purpose by presenting a logical argument that is easy to follow and
understand. Being neutral in an argumentative essay is key because too much personal
emotion might hint to the reader as unprofessional.
5). Evidence
Odd One Out does not use any primary or secondary sources, but instead uses her own
experiences as evidence. The decision to not include any sources adds to the reflexivity
because the article tells a story, instead of an argument. As mentioned in a previous question,
she uses “I” as her evidence, since she is pulling from her own experiences. The story aspect of
her writing is just as intriguing because that in itself is the purpose; a look into the past as a way
to reflect on one's present self. This opens up the narrative for the audience because although
the subject of the piece is about the connection to two languages and their dynamic over time, a
story can be understood by more people compared to a standard informative/argumentative
essay. With this said, Bhatt’s story she presents uses evidence from five sources to show her
train of thought on a more just society through the lens of music. Although her use of evidence
does make her argument easy to follow, there is still an undercurrent of bias to it since the
argument is about showing how similar people of different cultures are when looking at their
music. This separates the two articles by audience and by evidence used and how it furthers
each piece’s writing.
6). Organization
The articles are both similarly structured, with indents and paragraphs to show the train of
thought. Bhatt uses 6 long paragraphs, two being the introduction and conclusion, and the rest
being body paragraphs. Her first and second paragraph form under the idea that forcing
students to learn different styles of music makes them reflect on previous skills that they can
apply to new music. The third paragraph then transitions into how a well known composer's own
compositions improved when taking this approach to learn multiple cultures’ music. The last
body paragraph changes the subject as it shifts more to developing an open mind and tolerance
by listening and learning other cultures’ music. This organization is different from Ho’s since her
piece is written chronologically, starting from childhood to adulthood, where everything is
focused on her experiences. Yet looking at the writing, she never really discusses age. The first
body paragraph starts when she is in kindergarten, with the next couple paragraphs switching
between locations and how that affected her language. It is in the second to last body paragraph
that she brings time back by mentioning what happened in her middle school and high school
years, but this is a jump only discovered as the readers read further into the article.
7). Intro and Conclusion
Ho introduces her story by mentioning how people are surprised by her perfect English even
though she is from Taiwan. She ties this statement with the fact that her father could not speak
good English so he put his visions onto her, which resulted in her being able to speak perfect
English for the price of not knowing Mandarin. Bhatt starts her argumentative essay off by
mentioning the disparity multicultural youth feel when in the presence of Western culture
compared to their own background. She transitions into the topic of developing an open mind
and tolerance to be able to handle different situations with a steady hand. The conclusion for
both follow a similar format to their introductions. Ho keeps the same style; talking about her
language journey and how her fathers choices affected her. Although she can speak perfect
English, she still feels like the odd one out since she missed the opportunity to learn Mandarin
and feels like an alien when talking in English. Bhatt summarizes all of her previously mentioned
points in one neat concluding paragraph, following the usual format of an argumentative essay.
Both conclusions stay true to the style they started their writing off with, showing consistency
from start to finish.
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