Mute In An English Only World Summary

Tan goes on to explain what sociological impacts she experienced based on her upbringing. She concludes that her mother should not be judged based on her “watered down” English, and that people should be more accepting to those who cannot express their feelings in English.

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.”

“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.

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

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.

What does it feel like to be raised in an immigrant family? In the essay “Mother tongue” by Amy Tan, the author describes how her mother’s English influences her in her career and life that the “mother tongue” does not limit her as a writer, but shaped her and her perception on life instead. And her attitude to her mother’s English changes from the initial embarrassment to the final appreciation.

From an article called My Mother’s English of Vision Across Americas, the author called Amy Tan intend to tell us that the differences between her mother’s English and standard English. Plus, the process of how she finds these differences. Moreover, she tells us the influence of it to her mother, even to her. She makes some examples to prove that her mother suffered from unfair treatment because of her mother’s nonstandard English. In other words, English limit affect the daily life of her mother. Therefore, she always pretends to be her mother when she was fifteen years old. When she grows up, she was ashamed of her English and find why her English is different from other people. Then, she tries her best to improve her 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

Time and time again, Tan’s mother’s inability to speak proper English is seen by standard English speakers as a sign that she is unintelligent; they believe that the way she speaks is wrong and therefore the things she has to say are not important. This belief is so pervasive that as a teen, Tan herself used to believe that her mother was not smart because of how she spoke. Because Tan’s mother’s speech did not follow the rules of traditional English, Tan “believed that her [mother’s] English reflected the quality of what she had to say. That is, because she expressed them imperfectly, her thoughts were imperfect” (146). Because Tan’s mother speaks in ways that are described as “broken” and “limited”, as a teen Tan felt her mother’s language indicated that her mom was simple minded. However, as Tan grew up, she came to appreciate the beauty and intellect behind her mother’s words. While Tan’s friends comment that they cannot understand a majority of what Tan’s mother says, Tan hears her mother’s speech as “perfectly clear, perfectly natural”, and remarks that “her language, as [she] hear[s] it, is vivid, direct, full of observations and imagery” (146). Tan’s friends seem to hear Tan’s mother’s speech on a surface level; since they cannot understand what she is trying to say, they cannot understand how rich her language is. Just because Tan’s friends do not understand her mother, it does not make the intricacies of how she speaks any less unique. The tendency of standard English

Amy Tan wrote a short story “Mother’s Tongue” who ruminated and judged “broken” English. In her life she realizes that everyone speaks English in different ways. For example, Tan’s mother speaks “broken” English, when she is with her she speaks simple English. When she is in the outside world she speaks proper English. Tan’s mother is the reason why Tan studies the various English’s that everyone speaks. While growing up, she noticed she spoke differently to her mother than to others. This

In our life, not all people speak the English language speak it the same way. A language can be subdivided into any number of dialects which each vary in some way from the parent English language. "Mother Tongue," is the article based on the power of language; In her essay Mother Tongue, Amy Tan wrote some anecdotes of her mother and the influence of her mother's limited English on her early development, expressing her understanding of mother tongue. The evidence suggests that there are three messages conveyed in this essay, which is that mother tongue helped her understand her mother step by step, find her culture root and then achieve a balance between American culture and Chinese culture, and shape her thinking system.

In “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan, she opens the story by informing us that she speaks more than one language. She states that she is a writer and she is someone who has always loved language. Throughout the story she explains the different situations that she experience because of the way she talks such as when she has to translate for her mother on the phone and how she talks proper when she is giving a speech. She feels as if her mother’s English “limits” her perception of her. She also states that at one point she was ashamed of her mother’s English. On the other hand, her mother’s English is perfectly clear to her and she describes it as her mother tongue.

Language plays an important role in communication by bringing people together and enriching their relationships. Language can also alienate those who do not speak it properly, or at all, from those who do. The essays, Mother Tongue, by Amy Tan, best known for her book, The Joy Luck Club, and Se Habla Espanol, by Tanya Barrientos, delve into the many powers that language holds. These essays reflect how by not speaking a language in proper form and by not speaking a language at all, affects the lives of the subjects of the stories.

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.

In the world today, there are more and more multicultural people who can speak different languages; and they need to choose different tongues to correspond to the immediate community they belong. Language makes people remember their own cultures and contribute to their own identity. In “Mother Tongue,” a short story written by Amy Tan; she strongly narrates the stories about her different experiences and life comprehensions based on varying types of English she speaks throughout life. Wandering on two different languages; Amy discovers the importance and power of language: “the way it can evoke an emotion, a visual image, a complex idea, or a simple truth” (Tan 38). As human beings, language is the tool that contains the mighty powers; it forcefully affects people’s lives, personality, and lifestyles. Moreover, language is the “bridge” of communication between people. However, for Amy, the views on mother’s language are changing from the sense of shame into pride; as she is feeling the effects that two different types of English are giving to her as well as their respective symbols in her mind.