Amy Tan Mother Tongue Thesis

In the work of Amy Tan’s “Mother’s Tongue” she provides a look into how she adapted her language to assimilate into American culture. She made changes to her language because her mother heavily relied on her for translation. She was the voice of her mother, relaying information in standard English to

On one side, Amy Tan “Mother Tongue” shows how Amy Opens doors for her mother. One example of this is when Amy says “Just last week, I was walking down the street with my mother, and I again found myself conscious of the English I was using, the English I do use with her. We were talking about the price of new and used furniture and I heard myself saying this: "Not waste money that way." My husband was with us as well, and he didn't notice any switch in my English. And then I realized why. It's because over the twenty years we've been together, I've often used that same kind of English with him, and sometimes he even uses it with me. It has become our language of intimacy, a different sort of English that relates to family talk, the language I grew up with ” (Tan 363). This opens a door for her mother by being in and understand a conversation that she is not normally involved in. This is as simple as Amy talking to her mom in her mother’s language. This is similar to an adult explaining something to a child in the in

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.”

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

Mother Tongue is a story that describes how Amy Tan’s mother was treated unfairly because of her “broken English”. As the second generation of Chinese immigrants, Tan faces more problems than her peers do. Her mom, who speaks “limited” English, needs Tan to be her “translator” in order to communicate with the native English speakers. Tan has felt ashamed of her mother “broken” language at first. She then contemplates her background affected her life and her study. However, she changes her thought at the end since she realizes things behind language might be more valuable than language itself sometimes. Through the various different literary devices and rhetorical strategies such as the ethos, pathos, and logos appeals, as well as a

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.

The purpose of Amy Tan’s essay, “Mother Tongue,” is to show how challenging it can be if an individual is raised by a parent who speaks “limited English” (36) as Tan’s mother does, partially because it can result in people being judged poorly by others. As Tan’s primary care giver, her mother was a significant part of her childhood, and she has a strong influence over Tan’s writing style. Being raised by her mother taught her that one’s perception of the world is heavily based upon the language spoken at home. Alternately, people’s perceptions of one another are based largely on the language used.

Tan’s attitude towards her mother’s English begins with embarrassment and humiliation. Growing up in an immigrant family which speaks imperfect English, Tan witnesses many discriminations that her mother has encountered in department stores or at banks, those experiences help to shape Tan’s opinion to her mother’s English. For example, Tan states that “[she] was ashamed of [her mother’s] English. [She] believed that [her mother’s] English reflected the quality of what [her] mother had to say” (508). In young Amy’s opinion, her mother’s expressions and thoughts are broken and imperfect like the way she speaks, and she believes that linguistic expression is linked to a person’s intelligence. As a result, she was ashamed of her mother in public because of her fractured English.

"You should know that my mother's expressive command of English belies how much she actually understands. She reads the Forbes report, listens to Wall Street Week, converses daily with her stockbroker, reads Shirley MacLaine's books with ease—all kinds of things I can't begin to under-stand" (Tan 2). This section reveals how Amy's mother has a great understanding of English even though she does not speak it properly. Amy uses her writing here to create an emotional appeal. I agree with this point, that someone can understand advanced English, but not pronounce it like a native speaker. The author does a respectable job comparing her mother's understanding to herself. Amy is a fluent English speaker and does not grasp the material, her mother, who is a Broken English speaker does. The author demonstrates the purpose excellently through

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

First of all, Amy Tan uses ethos to present the idea that social expectations must not negatively influence one's perception. She makes her argument by using rhetorical devices such as, “I wanted to capture what language ability tests could never reveal: her intent, her passion, her imagery, the rhythms of her speech and the nature of her thoughts”. She felt that standardized tests could not accurately determine a person’s intelligence. Amy Tan states how people have different ways of thinking and different types of intelligence. Therefore, it really is kind of unfair, for lack of a better term. Tan recalls all the English that she grew up with her mom, and what she was taught affected her life. Throughout the story, she describes her relationship with her mother, who speaks “broken” English, and how her perception of language has changed due to her mother. She also successfully manages to explain that language barriers in the U.S have limited amounts of success for non-English speaking residents. Because her "mother tongue" is the English she uses while she is in her first world, her

In the essay, “Mother Tongue”, Amy Tan lays out examples of noticing the different Englishes in her life and how she incorporates them into her writing. She also breaks down the different versions of English that have taken root in her life. Tan notes that she includes all the Englishes of her life in her book, The Joy Luck Club. Tan, the daughter of immigrants, learned to navigate between the “perfect” English of her professional life and the “broken” English of her youth. The author’s main claim of there being no perfect way of speaking English is one that can be easily recognized because Tan gives clear examples of the diverse versions of English in her life, she pinpoints moments in which she sees the differences and discovers how to accept and acclimate these differences to her life and career.

In their articles, Chang Rae-Lee and Amy Tan establish a profound ethos by utilizing examples of the effects their mother-daughter/mother-son relationships have had on their language and writing. Lee’s "Mute in an English-Only World" illustrates his maturity as a writer due to his mother’s influence on growth in respect. Tan, in "Mother Tongue," explains how her mother changed her writing by first changing her conception of language. In any situation, the ethos a writer brings to an argument is crucial to the success in connecting with the audience; naturally a writer wants to present himself/herself as reliable and credible (Lunsford 308). Lee and Tan, both of stereotypical immigrant background, use their

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

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