Analysis Of Bill Bryson 's ' The Mother Tongue '

Asian-American author, Amy Tan, reflects in her personal essay, Mother Tongue (1991), her perception of language and ethnic identity through an employment of anecdotes and repetition. The history of Asian-Americans goes back to the nineteenth century when thousands of men left their families and homes in China, as well as other Asian countries, to seek their fortunes in the United States (Huntley 21). The Chinese, forming the largest Asian immigrant group, “became the first Asians to experience institutionalized discrimination when the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was passed by Congress, barring the majority of Chinese from entering the United States” (Huntley 21). International and domestic factors during the Cold War finally prompted the abolition of the quota system and the passage of the 1965 Immigration Act (Lee 3). Amy was born in California in 1952 to parents who had emigrated from China several years earlier (Huntley 1). As a second generation American, Tan’s parents wanted her to have “American circumstances and Chinese character” (Huntley 2); to her traditional Chinese parents’ dismay, she fully embraced the dominant American culture outside her home. Through the dual lenses of her American identity and her ethnic roots, Tan creatively shares her own experiences with language and emigration, while exploring the many facets of biculturalism and the challenges of integrating two distinct cultures.

“Authority and American Usage,” an interesting essay written by the brilliant and quick-witted David Foster Wallace, presents an argument on different ways of understanding the ever-changing American usage in the English language. Keeping up with the English language in America is like chasing your new, untrained puppy down the street. Tiring and basically impossible to get a hold of. Over the past centuries, the English language has evolved so much, that if you took a person from the 13th century and threw them in the middle of New York City in 2013, it would be as if two different languages were being spoken.

“Mother Tongue” is an essay by Amy Tan that examines the ways in which people treat those who do not speak or act like them. Simply, how people perceive those that are different . The main purpose of “Mother Tongue” is to inform the readers of the ways they might intentionally or unintentionally be treating people who speak broken english as Tan’s mother does. This essay highlights the extreme importance of language and how it connects with everyone’s day to day lives.

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

Imagine living in a country where you know you could die at any moment but don’t know how much longer till it happens. That was how much of the population of El Salvador used to feel when the government could not control the big coffee corporations. These out of control corporations, highly feared that the people would want to revolt against them so they hired murderers to kill innocent people to spread fear in the minds of the people of El Salvador. Fear, hate, and sorrow were the common feelings felt by the poor and innocent major population of El Salvador caused by the evil wrongdoings of the government during October 1979 – 16 January 1992. This is how the main character, Jose Luis, of the novel “Mother Tongue” by Demetria Martinez, felt before escaping his beautiful yet over constantly dangerous country, which depended on its cash crop, coffee beans to sell on a foreign market as the country’s main income. However, following the stock-market crash of 1929, a drop in coffee prices became apparent and affected everyone in El Salvador, but the poor especially. Making things worse, the glorious United States was funding the men whom were doing all the innocent killings with more weapons and money to increase their military power. So for Jose Luis the safe haven that he had escaped to was also blatantly funding the war that was killing so many innocent people he knew and had forced him to escape for his own safety. With nowhere else to go in order to find safety the United

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.

English today is the most commonly used global language for commerce and it is the main language of the international diplomacy. And maybe the most important for them, it’s the most common language on the internet. Also, the language that integrand

In the book Sista Tongue by Lisa Kanae, she talks about the communication issues that effected her family and how speech change the way people view each other. Throughout the book she mentions a piece that can relate to technology in the generation we live in and how it shapes the way we communicate, “ There is no excuse for pidgin spoken by native Hawaiians who had the advantages of American education. Perhaps I have a mania on the subject, but I am convinced that unless a person can speak well, he cannot think well. Substituting the expression, “da kine” for every word lacking in one’s vocabulary is not only an indication of verbal poverty, but of limited capacity for thought as well” (Sista Tongue). With the technology today, people have the resources to modify the way we communicate with one another.

The "Public and Private Language", by Richard Rodriguez and "Mother Tongue", by Amy Tan are great examples of how two immigrant families can have their similarities and differences. For a long time, the American people have looked at immigrants through their own eyes and perspectives. Never do people think to change gears and walk in the footsteps of a stranger. In this case, people need to look through the eyes of an immigrant and see that one immigrant family is not the same as the other. The different people may have connections with the same or different cultures, however, they have different obstacles and hardships with adjusting to a new way of living.

Upon my arrival in the U.S., I faced a cultural shock. Although I had grown up speaking English, I discovered that American English, colloquial expressions, idioms and literature were all different than what I

Amy Tan is a popular American writer who likes to focus on mother daughter styles. Tan would normally get story situations and ideas from her personal experiences with her mother. Tan writing on the level of english she had began to make her notice the amount of variation in the english language. Growing up with her mother helped her notice this with how her mother would speak english compared to her friends and this gave her idea to write “Mother Tongue”. Tan’s purpose for writing “Mother Tongue” is that americans can be unaccepting of different languages and often lead to stereotypes or misconceptions being created. Tan demonstrates this purpose through use of personal experiences while using a critical or disheartened tone.

In “Mother Tongue” essay by Amy Tan, Tan shares her discoveries about the different variations of English she learned growing up in an Chinese-American household, and then reflects on these findings. Tan shows the reader that racial profiling still exists, even in a time where every person is promised freedom and equality in the world. Tan talks about not only does the profiling exist and occur, but that it is also done incorrectly and inefficiently, as Tan clearly demonstrates it by surpassing any test that suggested she study medicine or engineering. In her essay it is noticeable that all the evidence used to support Tan's arguments are past experiences she had as a child growing up, speaking what was considered "broken" English. I can definitely relate to Amy Tan’s essay because I too came from a bilingual home and Like Amy Tan, I had intelligent immigrant parents and I was their main avenue of communication with people who didn’t understand them.

United States of America, small in history but large in diversity continues to face new challenges with language as time continues to turn. In the documentary “Do You Speak American?” Robert MacNeil analyzes the English language and reveals many dialects that culturally defines us. Regional dialect is one of the many strongholds of all cultures and now it has reached its’ zenith and today it is slowly declining because it does not possess the human nature of advancement. Optimistically, it allows people to learn how to cooperate with each other. In order to advance and adopt a person has to change; I believe that the acceptance of cultural adaptations, diversity, and industrialization can prove that the decline of speech does not cause a

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.

The United States of America is one of the world’s most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations. Even though there is not an official national language, most Americans speak Standard American English (SAE). However, the most prevalent native English vernacular dialect in the United States is African American Vernacular English (AAVE). According to Sharon Vaughn, AAVE is “a dialect used by some African Americans” (110). In order to examine AAVE, one must explore the origins, grammatical features, and prominent resolutions, which created a precedent for educating students that speak dialects other than Standard American English.