An Investigation of a Language Profile of a Mother-Tongue Mandarin-Speaking Graduate Student from English Major in Hong Kong

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.

This means that language itself is not just a form of communication, but also a means of connecting to the culture shared between the adolescents and other Vietnamese people in the community. Vietnamese parents tend to enforce the acquisition of the Vietnamese language upon their children because they experience the phenomena of language loyalty and language maintenance. Language loyalty is “the tendency to remain loyal to the community language” (Danesi, 2016, p. 100), while language maintenance is “the tendency to maintain the language” (p. 100). According to Stoessel, these two factors are “critical for the survival of a minority language” (p. 100). Applying it to the participants in the case study, the minority language would be Vietnamese since the

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 was a time she didn’t know how to describe a “white board marker” in Chinese, so she asked her class how to say it. “One girl, who went by the name of Tracy, eagerly told [Stephanie the word], and had a huge smile on her face” (Lam). Even though the language barrier was difficult, she and her students overcame it together with pointing and various other universal gestures and facial expressions. This way, the students were encouraged to understand English better to communicate with their teacher, and my cousin refined her own oral Chinese skills. The students “were kind and willing to help despite [her] poor Chinese, and didn’t judge [her] either” (Lam). The students were happy enough that she came all the way to Taiwan to teach them English. They respected this, and were eager to help her discover a new culture and improve on her Chinese abilities. The barrier was still tough for Stephanie, but thanks to the kindness of her students, it was much easier to bear through and succeed. It was a new and unknown world for my cousin, but she still made the most of her experience and discovered so much more about East Asian culture.

There are numerous bilingual and multicultural individuals on the planet today. For some, decisions of which language they utilize, and how they utilize it, relate to what social or social group they have a place with. Amy Tan, a Chinese American writer, depicts this well in her short exposition “Mother Tongue”. Tan experienced childhood in two unfathomably unique universes utilizing diverse English’s. The primary world, which comprises of her nearby family, she talks what we may call “broken” or “constrained” English. The second world, which is her business and expert world, tan talks and composes culminate standard and scholastic English.

In the examining and writing my analysis of the article Mother Tongue by Amy Tan, I hope to appeal to an audience that wishes to expand their knowledge of the cultural use of various languages and their social impacts. In this case, the language would be English and the culture would be that of Asian-Americans. I would think that this work, and the analysis of, would primarily be of interest to those in academic or research fields of sociology and language. I would hope the reader of my analysis would be interested in gaining insight into how using a “broken” English system heavily influences one’s communication and feeling towards those outside of your culture. The analysis would benefit the reader by

We are all members of a social group and members of `society´ as a whole. People interact in many ways and communication is just about the most common and among the most important. Whatever is meaningful to a group, from their everyday life to their traditions constitutes their very own culture and is generally respected by all group members. Language is only one of such items. For ethnic minority groups that may have a language of their own, their language is a cornerstone in their culture.

The Essay written by Amy Tan titled 'Mother Tongue' concludes with her saying, 'I knew I had succeeded where I counted when my mother finished my book and gave her understandable verdict' (39). The essay focuses on the prejudices of Amy and her mother. All her life, Amy's mother has been looked down upon due to the fact that she did not speak proper English. Amy defends her mother's 'Broken' English by the fact that she is Chinese and that the 'Simple' English spoken in her family 'Has become a language of intimacy, a different sort of English that relates to family talk' (36). Little did she know that she was actually speaking more than one type of English. Amy Tan was successful in providing resourceful

Within ethnic communities, there are a huge number of people who face language barriers that prevents them from seeking employment outside of their ethnic community. People within these ethnic enclaves do not feel the need to learn the dominant language, because the majority of the population with their community speaks the same language as they do. Places like San Francisco’s China town has established their own enclave that includes everything from grocery shops to hospitals. This

Since Asia is a vast and thriving country, there are plenty of different languages—Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Tagalog, and Vietnamese are just some common languages that are in United States. However, language barriers present a problem to Asian Americans especially in the older generations. “One of the contributing factor to the differences between AAPI (Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders) group is English proficiency…” (Migrante21). The reason why English proficiency is a factor in Asian Americans is because some Asian American households only have one language spoken at home. By retaining their languages at home, the elderly has very little chances to speak English unless they are speaking to their grandchildren or their children. This type of language isolation is very prevalent in my own household where my mom and dad sometimes have a tough time speaking in English and would often stumble on their own words. This is because in the household,

Language attitudes, which include people’s perception about the language variety in their own community and language varieties in other communities, has been one of the crucial topics in sociolinguistics since 1960s.

I was born in Hong Kong and moved alone to Taiwan to live with my grandmother when I was 12. I struggled to learn the language, Mandarin, and to live and learn alongside children from a very different culture. I was like some alien from outer space in Taiwan – generating stares but not acceptance. However, by being open minded about both my potential and the potential of this little island, I succeeded in adapting. I spoke back to the television set to practice Mandarin; I read books and watched videos to learn Taiwan's culture, history, and literature; and I helped my fellow classmates in our

In this world, there are a lot of languages used to communicate. Nation and cultural diversity are a source of variation in the languages. The diversity of the language used by a particular group is a factor of the occurrence of bilingualism. According to Grosjean (1984, p. 1) bilingualism is the use of two or more languages. The proficiency of bilingualism may vary depending on the exposure to the other users of language and opportunities to use the language. It is one of the factors of replacement of the language. This phenomenon known as code switching, it can occur as a whole, the incorporating elements of other languages in the language being used, or the turn of a variation of a language. Based on Poplack (1980) theory code switching is the alternation of two languages within a single discourse, sentence or constituent. Garrett (2010, p. 11) said that code switching is the most powerful feature of informal communication. Code switching happens when speakers speak in one language into another language as example when they

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

All these reasons result in social interaction between speakers of different language, which helps predict language contact may result in multilingualism. It is estimated that over half of all countries are multilingual. An example of a multilingual society is Switzerland with three main languages: French, German and Italian and each language is dominant area of its own. John Edwards believes that everyone is bilingual, even if someone can only speak or understand, he believes that you have “some ‘command’ of a foreign tongue” therefore there is no clear monolingual country. Therefore multilingualism is useful in showing how the social interaction between people of different languages help us predict the linguistic results of language contact as it is an example of what happens when multiple languages exist and interact in the same country.