It is interesting to see how language takes on a different position in various places; in fact, language can be a determining factor to various options matters, such as whether or not someone receives a job or whether or not someone is discriminated against. In Mother Tongue by Amy Tan, Tan shares her experience with language and argues that people are influenced more by their family then they are by peers when it comes to language. However, Tan has lost sight of the wide variety of factors that influence how a person speaks, as in language is influenced by much more than peers and family. In the modern world, social media has a major influence on language. For instances, when vine was the trend amongst people anytime a certain vine …show more content…
Tan ignores that she is analyzing languages from the perspective of a bilingual person, which makes it logical that she argues that family is more influential to one’s language than one’s peers; however, for those are not bilingual there is rarely a major difference between how their parents speak and how their peers speak. Certainly, there are words or terms that teenagers will use that their parents may not, such as “bae” and “lit”, but the key difference is that those teenagers grow out of such phrases; meanwhile, those who have parents with accents or parents that pronounce words differently will continue to use such phrases throughout their lives. For instances, Vaporub is known as Vaporub to majority of people that only speak English, but for me, being a native Spanish-speaker, I pronounce it “vaa-pe-roo.” I was unaware that I was pronouncing it wrong until a peer of mine pointed it out to me. Despite my peers correcting me, I continued to pronounce it the way I was originally taught. Who’s to blame me if I simply trust my …show more content…
Teachers are the ones who sit down and teach students what proper grammar is and how to form sentences. Although it is true that children can learn how to form sentences by listening to others speak it, it is unlikely that a child would have perfect English learning that way. This once again puts teachers in the argument as most influential. For example, in Kindergarten I began to learn English, but neither my peers nor family could influence my English, considering neither of them had the level of expertise needed to truly impact how I spoke English. At the time both my family and peers lacked experience in English. This left the job to my glorious teachers: my ESOL teacher would pull me aside daily to work with me on my pronunciation; meanwhile, my primary teacher was teaching me the basics of English and grammar. This set the foundation of how I speak today and my teachers continue to influence how I speak by building up my vocabulary, since they use higher level words daily while teaching their students. The way they speak starts to flow into their student's speech, which ultimately influences the way student’s talk to their peers, family, and those around them. In fact, it is easy to pick out who has an education by the way the person speaks, since those who have minimal education are more likely to talk in slang terms in professional
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;
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 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
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 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.
In her article, she mentions that Sociologists and linguists will probably tell that a person’s developing language skills are more influenced by peers (Amy Tan). However, Amy Tan thinks family condition is very foremost for a person’s spoken English. Most of the time, people always can not find the distinction when they get used to a thing. If people do one thing for a long time, they always think it perfectly normal. In addition, the language spoken by the family plays a large role in shaping a language of the child. Her mother’s English still limits people’s perception of her. Furthermore, her mother’s English almost had an effect on limiting her possibility as well.
Our appearance is usually all that it takes for people to have a clear assumption of us all assuming that we speak the same language but when one opens their speak are perception of them changes automatically if they do not speak just like us whether it be good or bad. In “Mother Tongue”, Amy Tan viewing were affected by her mother’s english, Tan realizes the she has forgotten the true purpose of English - to understands one true personality. Tan confess how “[She] was ashamed of her mother’s english” (9). Like everyone else, Tan finds herself belittle her mother thoughts just because she simply cannot express a perfect sentence in english. However, She comes to realizes that the quality of our expression shares nothing with the quality of our thoughts. Tan affirms this by her mother's tongue “ was the language that helped shape the way [she] saw things, expressed things, made sense of things of the world” (7), which helps with the powers of language. We become accustomed to the language we hear everyday that it affects our thoughts and beliefs, which in end up affecting the
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 English language has many tongues. From the 1500’s where people started migrating to the thirteen colonies to today where America is surrounded by immigration. From the beginning of history, society has been shaping English and its quality. It’s shown in Amy Tan’s essay “Mother Tongue” the varying ways one speaks them, regardless of being the same language. The author’s mother is being discriminated against due to speaking a different English from the proper form of English. Amy uses her personal experiences to contribute to the English- speaking community about inequality of different tongues through rhetorical appeals such as pathos, ethos, and logos. Amy Tan in her essay “Mother Tongue” claims that foreigners and immigrants who can’t speak proper English are treated differently.
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.
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