Amy Tan And The English Language Analysis

I really enjoyed reading both essays, because they had a story to it I was able to paint a picture of what both authors wrote and I was also able to relate because English is not my or my families first language and I understand Amy Tan situation in mothers tongue because I have been in the same situation when I had to pretend to be one of my parents because I some people would take them seriously because of the way they spoke English. And for superman and me again I was able to relate because I was able to understand certain things in school when I first came to Haiti so I would answer a few question but the students that were from America didn’t like that I was answering the question, I feel like they expected to dumb, lost and keep quiet

In “Mother Tongue,” Amy Tan an American writer, shares her experience growing up with the family where no one speaks perfect English, and how it affected her education and her life. As the second generation of Chinese immigrants, Tan faces more problems than her peers do. Her mother, who speaks limited English needs Tan to be her “Translator” to communicate with the native English speakers. Tan states, “I was ashamed of her English” (2). Her mother is like a burden to her, at least in Tan’s early years. But the cultural conflict she becomes the theme of her writing and it is under this situation she wrote many novels and essays including “Mother Tongue.”

“One kind word can warm three winter months; an acute word can cut deeper than a sharp weapon.” This motto does not seem to follow the normal structure of English; that is because the motto is translated from the Chinese. However, it does not matter as long as people understand the meaning, right? Amy Tan in “Mother Tongue” narrates how her mother’s “broken” or “fractured” English affects her life. At first, Tan thinks that her language abilities and possibilities are limited because her mother, who is an American immigrant from China, does not speak English “properly” in the family. However, the experiences that her mother faced because of her mother’s “broken” English cause Tan to recognize that English structure is not the most important factor in English language. By using a variety of rhetorical devices through "Mother Tongue", for instance, double entendre, ethos, pathos, and tone, Tan effectively justifies that the underlying meaning should be more considered than the way people say their words or messages.

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.

Ms. Amy Tan recalled in her article “Mothers Tongue” how her mother had not been treated with respect because she spoke broken English. As she looked back over the life of her mother, she realized that this had been a lifelong frustration for her. She wrote how she was frustrated with the term "broken". Her mother was an intelligent woman; therefore, she was not broken by the definition of broken. She even recalls one time where she had to pretend to be her mother on the phone because her mother was not taken seriously. Tan used people wrongfully labeled, personal experience, and intelligence was not based on vocabulary to explain that people need to be treated with respect.

The article "Mother Tongue" by Amy Tan shows firsthand instances of how Amy's mother was treated because of the way she spoke. She was disregarded, not taken seriously, and thought of as dim. The author uses logic, emotion, and reasoning to show why this way of thinking is not often true. The article’s main claim of how people perceive the intelligence of those who speak broken English is easily defined because of the authors use of writing techniques like telling personal stories, creating an appeal to emotion, and an appeal to logic.

Malcolm X and Frederick Douglass were two very important men in America’s history. As educated black men, they defied the idea of uneducated blacks. Their prowess with language allowed them to communicate their movements’ message to the masses easily and effectively, letting them have an active role in society. Douglass wrote his autobiography, which was a bestseller, and exposed to antebellum America the true harshness of slavery. Malcolm X became an important figure in the fight for civil rights one hundred years later, giving speeches across the country. For both men, education became a process of enlightenment. It made them eager to learn more and more. However, this process had some differences. The most glaring difference is the way they learned; Malcolm X taught himself to read and write while Douglass’s mistress taught him first, and later by smaller children in the area. Besides that, the end result was vastly different for Malcolm X compared to Douglass, as he read much more diverse content than Douglass did. Thus, Frederick Douglass and Malcolm X shared both similarities and differences in learning to read and write.

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.

Amy Tan was born in 1952, in Oakland, California to Chinese immigrants John and Daisy Tan. Her family eventually settled in Santa Clara. When Tan was in her early teens, her father and one of her brothers died of brain tumors within months of each other. During this period Tan learned that her mother had been married before, to an abusive husband in China. After divorcing him, her mother fled China during the Communist takeover, leaving three daughters behind who she would not see again for nearly forty years.

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.

The title of this short story “Two Kinds” is describes the theme of this story. The mother had stated that there are only two types of daughters. “Those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind.” (pg 412) Jing Mei did not understand the truth or meaning behind that declaration until after her mothers death. Jing Mei realized that her mother only meant that she could be an obedient child by listening to her mother while at the same time follow her own heart and want her own prodigy in life. The last paragraph in this story also indicates the theme of two halves being equal to one. The two songs “perfectly contented” and “pleading child” was actually two halves of one song. Despite Jing Mei and her mother’s differences

In the duration of this English class we have read multiple essays. The essays include a short story, “Eleven” by Sandra Cisneros whose main idea is that there is not a correlation between age and emotional evolution. “College Pressures” by William Zinsser argues that college students are under excessive stress to plan their future and succeed. The narrative, “Mother Tongue”, by Amy Tan focuses on the variants in the universal English dialect which is based on one’s background. “Indian Education” by Sherman Alexies main purpose is to help readers understand the immense impact racism has on Native Americans. Each story had a different purpose but the common theme the essays shared was an educational setting.

In learning to read by Malcolm x and in learning to Read and Write by Frederick Douglass we can see both the men self-educated themselves. Both of them faced challenges to achieve their education and both of them had attained a sense of freedom by the growth of their knowledge. We will see in this essay how they learned the challenges they faced while trying to learn and what impact learning had on them. {Thesis- becoming literate gave both Frederick Douglas and Malcolm x freedom of mind.

For millions of immigrants, America has been seen as the land of opportunity where anyone could become anything he or she wanted to be. A family that believes strongly in the American dream can be found in Amy Tan’s short story, “Two Kinds.” The story centers around the daughter of a Chinese immigrant who desperately wants her daughter to become successful. In the story, the author shows the difficult lives immigrants face when moving to a new culture. In this short story, the theme shows the protagonist’s conflict with her mother on the type of daughter her mother wants her to be. The author establishes the theme of how difficult mother-daughter relationships can be through characterization, setting, and symbolism.

Despite growing up amidst a language deemed as “broken” and “fractured”, Amy Tan’s love for language allowed her to embrace the variations of English that surrounded her. In her short essay “Mother Tongue”, Tan discusses the internal conflict she had with the English learned from her mother to that of the English in her education. Sharing her experiences as an adolescent posing to be her mother for respect, Tan develops a frustration at the difficulty of not being taken seriously due to one’s inability to speak the way society expects. Disallowing others to prove their misconceptions of her, Tan exerted herself in excelling at English throughout school. She felt a need to rebel against the proverbial view that writing is not a strong