Mistranslation And Mistranslation In The Joy Luck Club

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.

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

She had to keep all these English’s separate because each was like its own language. If Amy were to mix them, it would become confusing and wouldn’t have made sense to her or her mother as they had grown accustomed to this language and communication. One language was the English she spoke to her mother. Amy had to simplify her English when speaking to her mother; Amy would speak the basic ideas of what she was trying to say to make it easier for her mother to comprehend. For example she said, “Not waste money that way” to her mother one day; she would even say this to her husband because it was routine to her to do so. When she made a speech once, she felt as if the way she was speaking was wrong because her mother was in the audience. A second English language to Amy was how her mother used English with her. Tan describes her mother’s English as “broken” or “fractured” language. This type of English affected Tan greatly; she said it limited her possibilities in life and also affected her performances in school when she took achievements tests, IQ tests, and the SAT because it limited her language skills. Another type of language that she grew up with was Amy’s translation of her mother’s Chinese. She described it as “watered down” and yet sometimes she would grow in confidence when she was on the phone with people because of this. However, later her self-esteem would lower because of

Have you ever played a game of mahjong? Mahjong is a solitaire matching game which used mahjong tiles. This game brings people together to create and reminisce memories while feasting on Chinese delicacies. In The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan reinforces the mothers’ bonds through meeting up to play mahjong in their club. They try to influence their daughters to take part in this Chinese tradition, but the girls have different views. They try to become part of an American society, and look back at their Chinese descent with distaste. While the mothers of The Joy Luck Club are determined to keep their Chinese heritage, their daughters are open and willing to experience a new American lifestyle, which causes conflicts between the mothers and daughters.

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

Amy talked about how people don’t understand her mother English and the main reason why they don’t understand her English is cause her tongue. “Some say they understand none of it, as if she were speaking Chinese.” (Tan pg.1)

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

At hoe, Amy Tan maintained a loving relationship with her mother. There, they were able to speak to each other the same way and understand each other perfectly. It was only outside the home that communication became a problem. She recalls how people disrespected her mother in department stores, restaurants and other places. Her mother, on a daily basis, received a constant condescending attitude from people. Tan became very uncomfortable with such attitudes. When her mother is disrespected or treated unfairly, Tan would simply “sit there red-faced and quiet”. She never felt angry toward her mother, like Khang did. However, she did feel that her mother’s informal English limited her perception of her.

To be orphaned from my native language felt, and still feels, a crucial decision” (Li 144). Yiyun mentions how she does not write in Chinese nor does she have her books translated into Chinese. The reason for Yiyun distancing herself from her native language is because it is not “her private language.” In her memoir, Yiyun expands on how English is her private language. According to Yiyun, “English is my private language. Every word has to be pondered over before it becomes my word...In my relationship with English, in this relationship with its intrinsic distance that makes people look askance, I feel invisible but not estranged. It is the position I believe I always want in life” (Li,146). In the English language, Yiyun felt she could truly express herself. Every word she thought and wrote down belonged to her. Chinese, on the other hand, was her public language. In Chinese, Yiyun questioned if “one could form a precise thought, recall an accurate memory, or even feel a genuine feeling” (Li 147). In other words, Chinese limited the way Yiyun could express her emotion and ideas, which is why she chose to distance herself from it.

This anecdote sets the stage for conflict between the Chinese mothers and their American daughters. The issue of the language barrier is a constant theme in both The Joy Luck Club and The Woman Warrior. In the immigrant narrative, English plays a major role in assimilating into the new world. For Tan, the struggle between Chinese and English haunts both her real life and her fiction. Tan herself stopped speaking Chinese at age five, though she has never lost her first language entirely (Amy). Her mother, Daisy, however, speaks "in a combination [...] of English and Mandarin" (Huntley 3). Tan was taunted in grade school for her mother's heavy Shanghai accent (Huntley 3). Because Daisy never became fluent in English, the linguistic friction merely escalated between the two women (Amy). Tan expresses this tension in her novel when the fictional Jing-mei admits that she has trouble understanding her mother's meaning, and empathizes with her aunties who "see daughters who grow impatient when their mothers talk in Chinese, who think they are stupid when they explain things in fractured English" (Tan 40-1). The stresses of a bilingual relationship are further explored when Lena St. Clair finds herself acting as translator between her Chinese mother and English-Irish father, who each refuse to learn the other's language, placing their daughter in the cultural crossfire (Tan

From the film The Joy Luck Club, Chinese girls were supposed to act obedient and respectful to their parents and elders. This included the girls having to abide by each and every Chinese tradition that their parents instilled in them. Girls were also expected to be quiet and considerate to their parents and elders. They were only supposed to speak when spoken to at all times. Acting out against anything their parents enforced upon them was completely unacceptable.

Although this misunderstanding might be rooted from the systematic differences in thinking patterns and generation gap, we will focus specifically on the linguistic aspect of the issue. Throughout the movie, there are many unsuccessful attempts of both the mothers and daughters to communicate their ideas to the other, leading to frustration and a mutual lack of sympathy. To better understand the reasons for this conflict in verbal communication, we have to look closely into the differences in fundamental construct of language in China and America. This difference does not necessarily be the difference in language, since both communicating parties are using English. However, it is

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