Tan's Attitude Towards Her Mother Analysis

In “Mother Tongue”, Tan begins the story with a memory of giving a speech to a group of people. In the audience was her mother, a Chinese immigrant whom is unfamiliar with Tan’s “carefully wrought grammatical phrases,… all the forms of standard English that [she] had learned in school and through books” (p. 418). This speech intended for an academically rich audience made her realize the difference in her “Englishes”. The english she uses around her mother is quite different than the english she speaks in a formal “American” setting. Her mother’s “broken English” brought a level of “intimacy” between the two of them, but caused many

On one side, Amy Tan “Mother Tongue” shows how Amy Opens doors for her mother. One example of this is when Amy says “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. We were talking about the price of new and used furniture and I heard myself saying this: "Not waste money that way." My husband was with us as well, and he didn't notice any switch in my English. And then I realized why. It's because over the twenty years we've been together, I've often used that same kind of English with him, and sometimes he even uses it with me. It has become our language of intimacy, a different sort of English that relates to family talk, the language I grew up with ” (Tan 363). This opens a door for her mother by being in and understand a conversation that she is not normally involved in. This is as simple as Amy talking to her mom in her mother’s language. This is similar to an adult explaining something to a child in the in

Amy Tan was born in China on February 19, 1952. She was one of three children to her parents. Amy was born to her mother’s second husband. Later on, her family escaped China on the last boat before the Communist takeover of China in 1949. Her mother left behind three other kids from a previous marriage. Amy finished high school in Switzerland, and fought with her mom the whole time. She went to college at a Baptist college. She then defied her mother by leaving that college and following her boyfriend to San Jose State University. She further defied her mother by abandoning her pre-medical degree for an English and linguistics major. She eventually married her boyfriend, Louis DeMattei, and they moved to San Francisco. Amy Tan started to repair her relationship with her mother, once she was deathly ill and in the hospital. Amy made a promise to take her mom to China to find the children that she left behind. This allowed for Amy to finish her book and get closer to her mother. She went on to write many books and essays after her time with her mother. What caused that dramatic of a change in major for Amy? What caused the rift between her and her mother?

Am i Tan, Writer burn in U.S daughter of Chinise parents. In her essay "Mother Tongue" she establishes her mother's limits within society because of her "broken" English and also how her mother English help her see the world differently. In paragraph 7 she writes how some of her friends only understand 50% of what she was

This indicates that Tan communicated for her mother, meaning that the mother was limited to certain life experiences simply because she was unable to communicate in English. In this example Tan is trying to show the audience that language should not be judged by grammar, and that as long as the message is understood, there is no problem. I personally believe that language is not about the words we use but rather about what we mean by them. In today’s society, individuals with imperfect English are identified as inadequate and insufficient. However, if a person possess standards English abilities they are seen as superior to those who do not.

In the essay "Mother Tongue" by Amy Tan, Tan discusses the idea that people who speak a “different” English are generally characterized as less intelligent. Amy goes on to tell the story in relation to her life with her mother in America, and how her mother’s “broken” English has influenced her being. Tan was born into a Chinese culture, where she was obligated to acquire two different ways of speaking, one being her academic English and the other being her family English. Tan states in the essay, “But to me, my mother’s English is perfectly clear, perfectly natural” (543). Amy tries to relate her experiences of her mother to describe how we speak differently with our family than we do in public. She was influenced by seeing the different problems

Tan writes that because her mother’s English is limited, people “did not take [her mother] seriously, did not give her good service, pretended not to understand her, or even acted as if they did not hear her” (Tan, para. 8). Tan further provides an example of the difficulties her mother encounters by recounting an occasion where the hospital lost her mother’s CAT scan. When Tan’s mother confronted the doctors in her “broken” English, “the hospital did not apologize… and did not have any sympathy” (Tan, para. 13). After Tan spoke to the hospital in her perfect English, they apologized “for any suffering [her mother] had gone through for a most regrettable mistake” (Tan, para. 13).

Tan is aware that the literary audience will have a higher expectation of her writing. Therefore, she does not write in the manner in which her mother would speak (“broken English”). However, throughout her essay, any reader, whether an English scholar or student would easily be able to understand what Tan is trying to convey through her writing. In her essay Tan states: “Fortunately, for reasons I won’t get into today, I later decided I should envision a reader for the stories I would write. And the reader I decided upon was my mother.” Tan’s writing fully expresses the nature of her thoughts and

Through details in the essay, Tan expresses the troubles her mother faces because of her

She does this by displaying the use of incorrect English as suitable for the situation. Even as an author with her level of success, Tan still uses English in ways that would be considered improper. She consciously caught “[herself] saying this [to her husband]: ‘Not waste money that way.’”. This “different sort of English…relates to family talk, the language [she] grew up with”. Growing up around this certain style of language is how it “helped shape the way [she] saw things, expressed things, made sense of the world” (Tan 77. Context and the relationship between the individuals engaging in conversation is much more important than proper usage of English. Tan utilized the idea of family to further connect her audience to her argument. She introduced an element that could create a common bond between her and the audience. As the successful author Tan is, it is imperative she creates a common ground between herself and the audience. It would be impossible for the audience to believe that incorrect English would be more appropriate in this situation of being with her family. However, she also displayed the inverse of using improper English to further solidify her different approaches to

In the short narrative “Mother Tongue” Amy Tan talks about the different “englishes” she has experienced in her life. Tan illustrates the difficulties people with “broken” English encounter on a daily basis. Through the use of vivid imagery, the author illustrates her appreciation and opinion towards the variation of the English language. However, Tan has a shift in tone throughout the narrative. She begins expressing her embarrassment for having a mother whose English is not up to the standards placed by the American society that Tan is trying to belong in. However, later she realizes that this “broken” language is part of her culture and personality. Through the use of anecdotes, the author tells us that English was never her strongest subject

Tan talks about the different use of the English language and describes situations that she use them in, but with every story told holds some sort of symbolic moment for her. When speaking “Proper English” to group of people at convects, Tan says how wrong and awkward she felt just because it was the first time her mother had ever heard her talk “Proper English.” Her speaking “Proper English” could be seen as her acceptance into the everyday American Society. Anytime Tan would talk to her mother was always in “simple english”, although never the English her mother speaks but it was close enough for her to understand her. The difference of this english helps understand how Tan has great bond with her family even going as far as intimacy with

Tan and her mother was not the ideal mother-daughter. Tan’s parents had high expectations of her. In Tan’s interview she stated how she thinks: “her issues with her mother were both cultural and generational.” Because of the issues she grew up ashamed of being Chinese. She wanted to bury that side of her so she would be more of an

In Tan’s earlier years, her mother’s English limited her own perception of her; Tan even states that she was ashamed of her mother’s English at the time. There were several instances recalled by Tan in which her mother was treated differently because of her grammar while speaking to unfamiliar business people. While in department stores, banks, and even restaurants, Tan’s mother was ignored and given mediocre

Tan and her mother came out of different cultural and linguistic background, by which shaped their identities differently in terms of fundamental perceptions, personalities, and conceptually believes; no common language is shared between them other than English, which makes their daily communication fairly awkward. For this reason, Tan, who was born in the US and spoke English as mother language, could not adapt her mother well in the early stage and was even racist to her mother too, as Tan acknowledged ‘I was ashamed of her English’ and ‘she expressed them imperfectly, her thoughts were imperfect.’ In fact, these of Tan’s early thoughts definitely indicates to what extent Tan identified herself as an American over Chinese, in line with the