Mother Tongue Essay - 795 Words

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†¦show more content†¦She realized that her mother tongue has become their language of intimacy, a different sort of English that relates to family talk,...(Tan 61) Her mother tongue is the English she uses while she is in her first world, her private world, which is a completely different cultural community. As Tan was growing up, the speech she used in her family environment affected her results on various tests at school. Many other Asian Americans had this similar problem, and had teachers who are steering them away from writing and into math and science, which is what happened to me(Tan).(Tan 64) This is because Math has only one correct answer, whereas English was a matter of opinion and personal experience.(Tan 63) As a result of this, Tan drove herself to disprove others assumptions and became an English major. She wrote in a way to prove her mastery over the English language. An example she gives is this line, edited from the final version of her book, That was my mental quandary in its nascent state.(Tan 65) This is the type of language she uses in her professional life. Her words are filled with carefully wrought grammatical phrases...all the forms of standard English that (she) had learned in school and through books.(Tan 61) Without realizing it at first, Tan widened the gap between her professional community and her private familyShow MoreRelatedMother Tongue1199 Words   |  5 PagesRhetorical Analysis of â€Å"Mother Tongue† written by Amy Tan â€Å"So easy to read†(p.4). Amy Tan ends her essay, â€Å"Mother Tongue† with this short and even grammatically wrong sentence. She tells us this mother’s brief review is a proof of success of her writing. Why does she think that easiness is an essence of her writing? She suggests answers to this question by her essay. In her essay, Amy Tan effectively convinces her readers that â€Å"broken English† is not an inferior language, but justRead MoreMother Tongue767 Words   |  4 PagesMother Tongue, by Amy Tan Comprehension 1. What Tan is classifying in this essay is the different kinds of English she uses. 2. Tan identify the different categories she discusses in â€Å"Mother Tongue† almost in the last paragraph, where she named all the kind of English she uses. 3. Tan does illustrate each category she identifies 4. Some specific situations where Tan says her mother’s â€Å"limited English† was a handicap is when her mother could not be able to talk directly with peopleRead MoreMother Tongue Essay644 Words   |  3 Pagesin her story, â€Å"Mother Tongue†. Tan uses pathos to portray to her audience how through her experiences with her mother and the Chinese language she came to realize who she wanted to be and how she wanted to write. In â€Å"Mother Tongue†, Tan discusses the many ways in which the language that she was taught affected her life. Throughout the story, she describes her relationship with her mother, who speaks â€Å"broken† English, and how her perception of language has changed due to her mother. Whenever TanRead MoreMother Tongue By Amy Tan1553 Words   |  7 Pages(Date) â€Å"Mother Tongue† Response Essay In the essay â€Å"Mother Tongue,† Amy Tan emphasizes the idea that the language we are taught in childhood plays an important role in our lives. She writes about the profound effect language has on her life and how she is inspired by her mother’s â€Å"impeccable broken English† to become a writer (317). Tan describes her mother as an educated person who can read sophisticated and technical literature written in English with ease. However, Tan’s mother is oftenRead MoreMother Tongue, by Amy Tan819 Words   |  4 Pagesas â€Å"broken† and â€Å"fractured†, Amy Tan’s love for language allowed her to embrace the variations of English that surrounded her. In her short essay â€Å"Mother Tongue†, Tan discusses the internal conflict she had with the English learned from her mother to that of the English in her education. Sharing her experiences as an adolescent posing to be her mother for respect, Tan develops a frustration at the difficulty of not being taken seriously due to one’s inability to speak the way society expects. DisallowingRead MoreMother Tongue By Amy Tan1306 Words   |  6 Pages Mother Tongue is a story that describes how Amy Tan’s mother was treated unfairly because of her â€Å"broken English†. As the second generation of Chinese immigrants, Tan faces more problems than her peers do. H er mom, who speaks â€Å"limited† English, needs Tan to be her â€Å"translator† in order to communicate with the native English speakers. Tan has felt ashamed of her mother â€Å"broken† language at first. She then contemplates her background affected her life and her study. However, she changes her thoughtRead MoreMother Tongue By Amy Tan883 Words   |  4 PagesIn Amy Tan’s essay â€Å"Mother Tongue,† it is obvious that language plays an enormous role in our life. Language can influence and give us an insight into another culture different from our own. Amy Tan discusses the many ways in which the language she was taught and native to was important and powerful throughout her life. Language can be defined in various forms, but I hold and acknowledge Amy Tan’s explanation: â€Å"Language can evoke an emotion, a visual image, a complex idea, or a simple truth.† I canRead MoreMother Tongue By Demetria Martinez1448 Words   |  6 Pa gesAs the words of our founding fathers, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is the American dream that many pursue, whether immigrated to the United States or born here. Within Demetria Martinez’s book, Mother Tongue, a novel, the character named Jose Luis flees from El Salvador to the United States in order to escape it’s brutal civil war. His choice to flee El Salvador and enter the United States under a false name places him in a difficult situation, both in his moral abandonment of hisRead MoreMother Tongue By Amy Tan1375 Words   |  6 PagesTan, Mother Tongue Language is what allows humans to be creative. Creative in the way we express ourselves, creative in the way we put our ideas forward, creative in the way we correspond with each other and in the way we can touch each other’s lives. It is truly a gift that the other species of our world do not possess, at least not to the extent that humans do! Amy Tan is an American writer and her works probe the Chinese-American experience, especially the relationship between a mother andRead MoreMother Tongue By Amy Tan967 Words   |  4 PagesIn â€Å"Mother Tongue†, Amy Tan describes the several different kinds of English her that she speaks. It is an interesting concept to think about the fact that more than one variation of a single language exist. After reading â€Å"Mother Tongue† I began looking at my own life and seeing if I could recognize the different variation of English that I have come in contact with. After some serious thought, I realized that I have not only come into contact with many different kinds of English, but I speak many