The Importance Of Language In The Chinese Language

There is a linguistic gap between the mothers, who are the first generation of Chinese immigrants, and their American-born daughters. The mothers speak only fragments of English and their daughters speak little or no Chinese at all. So the communication often becomes a matter of translations and leads to misunderstandings. The first misunderstanding with translation is shown when Jing-mei tries to explain the significance of the club’s name,

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

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

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

In Mother Tongue, Amy Tan talks about how language influenced her life while growing up. Through pathos she explains to her audience how her experiences with her mother and the Chinese language she came to realize who she wanted to be and how she wanted to write.

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

The essays, "Mother Tongue" by Amy Tan and "Public and Private Language" by Richard Rodriguez are recollections of both of the author’s personal encounters and difficulties with the gap that was created between their families by differences in languages. These two writers grew up with bilingual families, in which English was not the primary language. Consequently, they had a hard time accepting and understanding the issues surrounding the different languages they spoke with their families at home, and within society. Because of this, the gap between their public and private languages that had been created through the introduction of a second language slowly grew larger, and eventually impacted their relationships with their family and caused them to view them in a different light. In their writing, Both Tan and Rodriguez reflect on their personal experiences and memories and illuminate the effects that a private language can have on various aspects of life.

To show this point the author’s write about Cao’s experiences with a language struggle between family members. This narration gives the reader a close up look at how language works in a family. Besides using narration she always uses a little cause and effect by sharing the results of having language separation. She gave three examples of conversational situations in her household. The languages Vietnamese, Hainanese, Mandarin, and English are used interchangeably. Looking at the dialogues in the article made the conversation seem broken because there were four languages being used. The first conversation is between Cao’s mom and one of her siblings, Tung. It has to do with Tung not wanting to eat the large amount of noodles Mom prepared for him. Then she asks about Tung’s homework and he is unable to explain it to her because they do not share a fluent language between them. In the article this selection was described as a “routinized interactive exchange” (Thomas & Cao 64). This means that the two of them were able to have small talk based on things like food. But they

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.

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.

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

Going through daily life being overlooked or misunderstood due to a language barrier is no small feat. Amy Tan wrote “Mother’s Tongue” to explain life growing up with a mother who’s second language was English. She discusses the difficulties she had in school, that her mother had faced with communication, and how she began her writing career. Tan developed a writing style that incorporated everything her mother had taught her to make a style that would be enjoyable for all readers.

Mistranslation was a reoccurring theme in the book, The Joy Luck Club. There were frequent scenarios when characters could not understand each other properly due to mistranslation and miscommunication. Jing Mei has trouble understanding her mother in the following excerpt: “"It’s not showoff." She said the two soups were almost the same, chabudwo. Or maybe she said butong, not the same thing at all. It was one of those Chinese expressions that means the better half of mixed intentions. I can never remember things I didn’t understand in the first place.” Jing Mei cannot fully understand her mother’s intended meanings to a multitude of conversations due to this. Waverly Jong had a certain run in with the language barrier as well. “Aii-ya. So shame be with mother?" She grasped my hand even tighter as she glared at me. I looked down. "It’s not that, it’s just so obvious. It’s just so embarrassing." "Embarrass you be my daughter?" Her voice was cracking with anger. "That’s not what I meant. That’s not what I said."” Waverly is trying her best to explain to her mother that she does not want her mother to say that she is her daughter to every person she meets and the underlying feel of becoming a trophy for her mother. Her mother has difficulty understanding this and she gets angry at her daughter. This miscommunication escalates the hurt feelings felt between both parties.

When speaking with someone, the proper way to construct a sentence would be to use a subject and a verb that agree. In terms of Amy Tan 's mother, Daisy, in "Mother Tongue" the construction of sentences is a major effector when it comes to their relationship. While Tan was born in Oakland, California, her mother Daisy and father John were both Chinese immigrants. Before meeting John and immigrating to America in 1949, Daisy was married to an abusive man in Shanghai, China. During this time period women in China were insignificant unless it came to domestic housework. Women had little to no voice and lacked a proper education. Unlike Daisy, Tan was able to attend school and even go on to college and study English and linguistics. By analyzing Daisy and interpreting her actions in relation to Chinese women and their significance in China and America, it is clear that Tan was significantly affected by her mother’s broken language.