Lost In America Rhetorical Analysis

Lost in America is a text on how the generations before us were set with a language barrier. Breaking this barrier could a have benefited us in countless ways. It starts from beginning to end, talking about how we begin to change our aspects for foreign countries. Douglas McGray states that students did not study abroad in the world war generations. America basically shuts its door on trying to learn different languages. This hurts us in the wars and foreign affairs. As time went on, this problem begins to get fixed and languages begin to enter the “American,” language. He writes “Lost in America,” with the experience and knowledge through other people. Every person learns through two ways: Through Experience or someone else’s experience. Douglas

uses facts and historical moments to prove his text and does it efficiently. His essay contains many rhetorical devices such as, factual evidence, irony, credentials, and statistics.
Douglas McGray writes “Lost in America,” with factual evidence to prove he is credible.

The author uses words like Globalization, Unnecessary or Missing Capitalization and foreign to show he is in full understanding of the topic. McGray has to have a word choice where students and the learning community will be able to know McGray is a liable writer. He has to show he has full knowledge that everything he types has occurred and is backed with evidence. He describes the government trying to push the study of foreign language in 1975 at the Helsinki Accords. It’s smart that Douglas used these dates to make his text credit sources. He shows his readers that he himself has done the research. Factual evidence was used the most when Douglas described how presidents tried to fund language incentives. He writes that even language classes were needed, but not the main priority by the government. $24million dollars were used to create the language incentive, but it didn’t compare to the $206million dollar requested for Abstinent Sex Education. Our priorities seemed to have been misunderstood back in the early generation, Douglas writes. Language is a cultural diversity between countries, but once we explore languages we are open to a whole new era of education. This new era can help Americans in wars, learning communities, and even

business.
Secondly, the author uses irony at the end of the text. He goes through and explains how students need to be more diverse and explore new cultures. He laughs at himself because the problem, he announced begins to be fixed without a governmental push. We eventually changed for the better yet, sooner could have been more profitable for our country’s safety. “American college students began to seek out new foreign languages and study abroad in greater numbers. But they did so with so little encouragement.” (McGray 355) Ironically students begin to travel and study abroad so drastically, cut backs had to be made by the government. Now we have so much education in language, the problem is no longer at hand. I believe he shows us this example to explain how we the people fix our own troubles after occurrences occur. In the beginning, we were a country fighting “blind” in foreign lands. Now were a cultural country always learning and being watched by others. Even other countries are copying our ideas and investments. We have Chinese and Arab countries donating millions of foreign currency just for students to study in our country. That was the complete opposite from where we started. Men were being killed because of language barriers. “It took two world wars, the rise of an ambitious Soviet Union, and the birth of technologies that exploded any notion of safe distance for the United States to rethink its isolationist bent.” (Douglas 355) As Douglas describes, we use to shun languages we were at war with. World War one, we banned the use of German language in our schools. Learning the language in schools could have helped us in the war and end threats more efficiently and effectively. The world we live in today, is now diverse and culturally influenced.

The third rhetoric device McGray used, was stating credentials. Stating Credentials helped Douglas’s topic become more reliable in viewers’ eyes. He uses a Principle Yvonne Chan in his text to explain World class. Using a person in a higher position helps Douglas prove his point about the topic at hand. I believe he needed someone like Principle Yvonne Chan in his text. “Our children need languages other than Spanish and English to compete globally,” (Sierra 358) says Imelda Sierra. I wanted to include this quote from an average American, to show Douglas uses common people to help prove there is a need for language diversion. If a common person in society and a higher authority agree on a topic, then it is obvious we should push for the same movement. If Douglas only used people in higher education, then there would be less of a credible fact. Instead he asked all classes of Americans for a more accurate foundation. “Together, they operate more than 700 bases in roughly 130 countries — the shadow of America’s interests in the world. At the same time, foreign influence in the United States grows every year.” (McGray) He used a military credential to show how foreign immigrants are helping with the influence of cultural language. With this being stated, it helps readers understand the need for diversity.
Lastly, McGray uses statistics from different generations to show how we changed in a cultural aspect. In the beginning of the text, the author states “Two thirds of American students never studied a second language at all in the year 2000.”(McGray 356). McGray uses the appeal to history Avoid talking about more than one choice at a time, to show he is getting his information from a credible source. He talks about the effect that happened in the past like the World Wars and the Cold War. Using these wars helps readers relate to how his topic could have helped the United States prosper in the time we needed to. He uses the worst moment in history, and shows them how we could have changed the past just by language. This provided readers to understand how serious this topic has to be taken. Douglas describes that over sixty-nine percent of college students could not find Britain on the globe. He continues to exploit the knowledge of college student by testing them with geography. These statistics helped the author prove his point on the cultural influence in America. With shocking statistics, he can rally influential people to help make a change in a society. Ironically his problem begins to be fixed as time moved forward. He describes the modern generation to be diversified and have a push to study abroad in foreign countries.
“But it isn’t just the world that is changing; it’s the very nature of knowledge Grammar, spelling, and multiplication tables...” (Douglas 358) This quote shows us he sees the change. I feel like this “change,” is the whole reason he wrote “Lost in America. He set out to tell us how we became more diverse, and how it would have benefited us in the past. He sets America at such a high standard. McGray describes the United States as a powerhouse by, solving international crisis, sinking treaties, and vetoing global consensus. He shows how so many countries are following in our footsteps. The author is trying to prove that we need to be held highly, since our country is. We need to continue on being educated about the world around us. McGray used all four rhetoric devices in his favor.