Amy Tan Mother Tongue Analysis

Yet some of my friends tell me they understand 50 percent of what my mother says. Some say they understand 80 to 90 percent. Some say they understand none of it, as if she were speaking pure Chinese," (Tan, paragraph 6). This gives the audience insight into Tan's world and the world around us. This statistics provided by Tan also gives her words credibility as an author discussing linguistic challenges faced by immigrants by using someone near and dear to her, her mother.

In Amy Tan’s essay “Mother Tongue”, Tan discusses how the way her bilingual mother speaks negatively affects how people perceive her intellect. Despite the fact that Tan’s mother is actually very intelligent and understands more than many people expect her to, she often is ignored and belittled because of how she speaks. Tan feels that those who ignore and belittle her mom are oblivious to the beauty, complexity, and richness of her mother’s speech. In Tan’s essay “Mother Tongue”, Tan shows that the belief that standard English is inherently better than other forms of English is flawed by questioning the prominence of proper English and sharing how rich and beautiful her mother’s English can be.

United by the obligations of the law, yet entirely divided by society, welcome to America. Patriots chant “equality” one moment, and “deport them” the next. Cruel, unaccepting, and uncompassionate, American society of the majority often appears to view itself as sovereign, turning a blind eye to, and often contributing to, the struggles of minorities. In “Mother Tongue”, Amy Tan (1990) does an excellent job of sharing her experience with similar issues as she tells her readers about the struggles her mother encountered due to being an immigrant who only spoke “broken” English. Society often put no weight into what Tan’s mother had to say, believing her ability to express her thoughts reflected the quality of said thoughts, which are of absolutely no correlation (Tan, 1990). This often led to Tan having to intervene for her mother, especially during serious situations that required resolution (Tan, 1990). Immigrants, no matter how intelligent or talented, may be plagued by continuous struggles because of a lack of understanding of English or American culture, stereotypes encouraged by the media, and discrimination, especially in the workplace.

Language is a very important and significant part of individuals’ life. It is considered as one of the best device of social behavior. Language is a means with the help of which people communicate and send a social message to one another. But language does have very special characteristics according to which it changes and very depending on many factors. According to the researchers there are no two people who speak identically. Their languages vary as per their geographic location, age, gender, ethnicity, social background etc. many a time, it is observed that even the members from same family speak differently due to differences in their location ( Biber & Conrad, 2014). For example, in my neighborhood, there is a difference in the ways of

The band classes this year are really good. We have been practicing really hard music so we will be ready for the high school band. The first year you take an instrument test to find out what instrument you will play. After you find out what instrument you are going to play you have to go home and practice a lot.

In Mother Tongue, Amy Tan talks about how language influenced her life while growing up. Through pathos she explains to her audience how her experiences with her mother and the Chinese language she came to realize who she wanted to be and how she wanted to write.

This is what theologian Horbury surmised about early Christian persecutions, and I largely agree with this view. The Jews sometimes persecuted the early Christians because their beliefs clashed and this caused friction between the two religions. As well as this ‘incompatibility’ between the two faiths, Donatism also developed as a separate sect of Christianity within the orthodox church and a lot of persecution and hate was directed towards the early Christians. However, without this I do not believe that Christianity would have developed and formed the monotheistic, dogmatic religion that we associate ourselves with today.

While reading this short story, I kind of sense that the narrator was a little judgmental, but then as I continued reading, I realized that everyone in this short story is. The narrator is clearly omniscient (limited) because of the way they talk about characters, but they seem to be limited to Mrs. Hopewell and Joy (Hulga). Although the narrator makes judgmental comments about what is going on, I would argue that the characters and the narrator aren’t so distant because the narrator often re-enforces some of the claims that the characters make, and their values change to be in sync with each other.

There are both positive and negative aspects of learning a language, but people are likely to equalize two sides and try not to lose the relationships with their family and the society. Amy Tan, in “Mother Tongue” and Richard Rodriguez in “Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood” explain how they viewed their private and public languages through their experiences and how they managed these two languages and established themselves in the society. Tan initially felt ashamed of her private language and favored the public language; however, in the end she showed that she could manage the balance between the languages and finally utilized both in public. On the other hand, Rodriguez preferred his private language which made him feel comfortable;

Not all people whose English as a second language speak it in the same way. This argument made by Amy Tan in her story, “Mother Tongue”. In this essay, she successfully uses all three of Aristotle’s rhetorical styles such as ethos, logos, and pathos. Tan also notably balances each part of the rhetorical triangle and ultimately led to creating a very effective and thought provoking essay.

In Amy Tan’s narrative, “Mothers Tongue”, Tan speaks about the unique dialect that she and her mother share. Only she could understand and conversations with her mother and understand every word she is saying. Tan writes about how she grew up with the variations of English; the perfect English that she spoke to the public, and the broken English she used with her mother. Tan writes that from a young age she was very embarrassed by the limited knowledge of English and how that “… reflected the quality of what she had to say.” (Tan, pg. 635) Tan reflects that with her mother’s limitations, she had to talk on her mother’s behalf just to have others hear what her mother had to say, Amy recalls a time where she was called to basically interpret

Amy Tan’s literacy narrative “Mother Tongue” is about the different dialects of English, she is familiar with. She explains that her intelligence is judged by the way she speaks. Amy Tan, explains memories from her life where she encounters many forms of English. Her mother, a Chinese immigrant spoke “broken English.” She describes her mother as someone who was able to understand English, well the mother claims that she understands everything, but when it came to speaking, she spoke without the correct grammar. Due to her mothers broken English, Amy Tan has adapted to the type of English her mother speaks, their own type of English language. Tan feels as if the English she is speaking with it outside world is more complex than the English she

Nature and nurture both play a significant role in language development. Language development refers to how children understand, organise, speak and use words in order to communicate at an effective, age-appropriate level (Karen Kearns, 2013, P.105). For centuries, theorists have been debating the roles of nature versus nurture. Although, each child’s language will develop at their own pace and there will be many individual differences based on culture, ethnicity, health and ability. As well as physical, social, emotional and cognitive development in which will contribute to a child’s language development.

In Mother Tongue, an essay written by Amy Tan, the fictional author explains how we all speak different languages and how we are all categorized and treated differently by the way we speak. She gives us examples and stories that have happened to her and how they made her become “fascinated by language in daily life.”

There are many bilingual and multicultural people in the world today. For many, the choices of which language they use, and how they use it, correspond to what social or cultural community they belong to. Amy Tan, a Chinese American novelist, portrays this well in her short essay "Mother Tongue." Tan grew up in two vastly different worlds, using different "Englishes." The first world, which consists of her close family, she speaks what we may call "broken" or "limited" English. The second world, which is her business and professional world, Tan speaks and writes perfect standard and academic English. Having to "shuttle" between these two communities with very different languages has had many different positive and negative effects on