Tan Mother Tongue

Tan shows that she is embarrassed in her family for their lacking of proper American manners. Although at the time she felt ashamed, the words spoken by her mother, “Inside you must always be Chinese. You must be proud you are different. Your only shame is to have shame” became better understood later in life. In Amy Tan's work, the strong use of description of both the event that are occurring and Amy’s feelings about them, draws the reader in and makes them feel as if they are part of the action. Tan's Chinese-American culture and life stories are imprinted in her writing which gives the reader an opportunity to gain knowledge about the way of life in her family, friends, and even the Chinese culture. Tan's main purpose of writing is to inform and educate people about growing up as a minority in the American society.

in Nguyen’s essay the two girls go to school and are automatically placed in a bilingual education system based on their physical features. This leads people around these characters to make assumptions of them not being able to understand english; when in reality, that is not the case because in Tan’s essay the mother understood and read a variety of newspapers. In Nguyen’s the girls also understand the materials in class and excelled in academics.

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

On the other hand the main focus on Tan’s story is to show the beautiful and passionate side of her mother that people can't see. Tan describes how all of the English’s that she grew up with, normal English and "mother tongue" English, has shaped her first outlook of life. She writes, "But to me, my mother's

3. In paragraphs 10 through 13, Tan juxtaposes her mother’s English with her own. The point these quoted passages make is to show how different was her mother’s English from her English.

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 wants the audience to know right away that even though she is about to tell you the story of a difficult childhood, she did reach her goal in the end. After making this statement, Tan dives into her past and how she came to be where she is today. Her mother is the next most important point of discussion. Her mother influenced her writing style as well as her beliefs about her culture and heritage. ?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? (Tan, 2002, p. 36). The broken up English her mother uses is the next issue Tan focuses on. ??everything is limited, including people?s perceptions of the limited English speaker? (Tan, 2002, p. 36). Lastly, she talks about her education and the role it had on her deciding what she wanted to do with her life. ?Fortunately, I happen to be rebellious in nature and enjoy the challenge of disproving assumptions made about me? (Tan, 2002, p. 39). By structuring the essay in order of importance, Tan reinforces her message that you can be anything you desire even with a different culture than the norm.

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.

Although this short essay is based on a true incident in Tan’s life it does contain pieces of fairytales and modernism. The story is revealed by Tan through first person narrative. The narrator, June May, is speaking about the events that she is experiencing. It begins with the memory of when she was in high school and how she was explaining to her mother that she did not feel Chinese (paragraphs 1-4). The narrator only knows of the situations she has been told about and experienced. Tan explains exactly how the reader is feeling along with giving the reader hints through June Mays’s actions and words.

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 order to tighten her persuasion, Tan shows the consequence of people judging her mother’s English through the rhetorical device-cause and effect. In her early years of writing, Tan uses great English and plethora of vocabularies to prove that she possesses the ability of a scholar writer. “And at first I wrote using what I thought to be wittily crafted sentences, sentences that would finally prove I had mastery over the English language” (637). Tan said she was trying to disprove people’s assumption about her writing talent. However, Tan, herself, was

As an adult, Tan understands that her mother’s English is the language of intimacy. She now understands that her “mother’s expressive command belies how much she actually understands” Her mother reads “The Wall street Journal” and converses with their stockbroker on matters Tan doesn’t comprehend. It becomes evident that her initial

1. There are two categories that Amy Tan uses for her writing and speaking towards different individuals. For example, one category that Amy Tan uses with her mother is a “broken”, “fractured”, and “limited” english due to her background as a native speaker of Chinese. One example was when Amy and her mother was talking about the price of furnitures and Amy said, “Not waste money that way.” This then shows that her mother isn’t very fluent with English and is lacking in grammar due to her word choice.

After reading Tan’s Mother Tongue, I learned that Tan “was born in Oakland, California, to Chinese immigrant parents”. In other words, Tan was well spoken in English and Tan’s mother is presumably strict and responsible. What I found interesting, she shows how her mother’s English seems good and understandable that Tan mostly talks about how her mother’s is so limited. This proves that, some people can/could understand of what her mother is saying like going to take a CAT scan. What I basically know that, Chinese cultures are really strict and well-respected to show respect, discipline and dignity to others at all times. For example, my Indonesian/Chinese culture, is also well-respected and somehow/seems to be strict that I must respect and