Comparative Essay
“Mother Tongue”, written by Amy Tan in 1990, is a narrative essay describing her and her mother's struggle to survive in the English speaking world around them. It showed how native English speakers perceived her mother due to her English accent and forced a negative effect on how Amy perceived her mother growing up in California. The second text is a newspaper article from the Toronto Star, “A language without limits”, written by Deena Kamel in 2008, 18 years after Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue”. This text talks about the act of speaking two languages, code-switching, and how it has now become an interesting form of communication in the twentieth century and One of the first points of comparisons between these two texts is the texts themselves and who they are appealing to. One being
…show more content…
First off, the Toronto Star article is an Online article, where presumably a younger audience would be reading, especially young ethnic people who would find this topic personal to them and interesting. What this article is telling the young generation is that code-switching is not something to be embarrassed about, as it shows “resilience and creativity”. This article is specifically based in Toronto and the GTA, meaning it is not an article that can be read nationally which is narrowing down the audience range. The news article was also written nearly two decades after “Mother Tongue”, giving a modern view on cultural diversity. On the other hand, the narrative essay “Mother Tongue”
The second way in which these two text types can be compared, is through the different expressions of the English language and how it has adapted and manipulated by different cultures . A good example to show this in “Mother Tongue” would be
“Se Habla Español,” is written by a Latin author, Tanya Barrientos; and Amy Tan, a Chinese author, wrote “Mother Tongue”. In both literate narratives the authors write about their experiences with language and how it impacted their lives. In This essay we will be discussing the similarities as well as the differences in the stories and the authors of “Se Habla Español” and “Mother Tongue”. We will discuss how both authors use a play on words in their titles, how language has impacted their lives, how struggling with language has made them feel emotionally, and how both authors dealt with these issues.
Language is an important part of who we are. It influences the way we think and behave on a great scale. However, sometimes it is forced upon us to go in different directions just so we can physically and mentally feel as if we belong to the society in which we live in. Just as we see in Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” and Richard Rodriguez’s “A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood”, both authors faced some challenges along the way by coping with two different languages, while still trying to achieve the social position which they desired.
In her narrative Mother Tongue, Amy Tan speaks of how the English language has shaped her life, drawing from personal experiences in her early life, to her daily use of English in the present. Tan begins her narrative by identifying her own “mother tongue”, which is simply the broken English her mother uses and has been accustomed to. Tan says that due to her mother’s broken English some are unable to understand her, thereby limiting Tan’s mother to function properly in our English speaking society. Tan shows the reader how her feelings toward her mother tongue have changed throughout her life drawing out a personal experience from her adolescence.
The article Mother Tongue, by Amy Tan is a personal look into how language, and the dialects of that language, can affect a person 's life. It 's a look into how the people inside the cultural circles who use dialect derivatives of a major language are treated by people who exist outside of those cultural circles. It shows us how society treats a person using a "broken" or "limited" dialect, and how society 's treatment of these people can also affect the children who grow up using these "broken" dialects. Tan wrote this article try and convey to the reader that English is a colorful, and ever-changing language that has many dialects. Tan makes the point, several times throughout the article, that society judges you based on the type of English that you use. Throughout the article, Tan uses both her mother, herself and society 's treatment of them as evidence to support her idea. The purpose of pointing this out is to show the reader that the language a person uses, whether it be taught to them in school or by a parent at home, isn 't indicative of a person 's intelligence or value, and they shouldn 't be judged as less for using it.
In the story “Mother Tongue,” by Amy Tan, Mrs. Tan talks about (in the book) her life and how she grew up with different Englishes was very hard and how it has affected her today. The setting of the book goes from being at lecture to the past of Amy Tan and her mother along with the different Englishes she had to come accustomed to. In “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan, the author’s attitude towards the “different Englishes” she grew up with is fascinated. Amy Tan conveys this attitude through wanting to learn all different kinds of Englishes, her use of Englishes in her novel, and the acceptance she developed of her mother’s broken English.
However, both of these text structures have similarities and nonconformity. One similarity is that both of these texts have the same written form. They both are talking about the same thing. Even Though, they have diversity characters. Those
In the work of Amy Tan’s “Mother’s Tongue” she provides a look into how she adapted her language to assimilate into American culture. She made changes to her language because her mother heavily relied on her for translation. She was the voice of her mother, relaying information in standard English to those who were unable to understand her mother’s broken english. She tells about her mother’s broken english and its impact on her communication to those outside their culture. Her mothers broken english limited others’ perception of her intelligence, and even her own perception of her mother was scewed: Tan said, “I know this for a fact, because when I was growing up, my mothers ‘limited’ English limited my perception of her. I was ashamed of her English. I believed that her English reflected the quality of what she had to say.” (419) The use of standard english was a critical component to Tan’s assimilation into American culture. Standard English was an element she acquired to help her mother but more importantly is was an element that helped in her gain success as a writer. Tan changed her ‘Englishes’ (family talk) to include standard English that she had learnt in school and through books, the forms of English that she did not use at home with her mother. (417-418) Tan realized the ch...
Despite growing up amidst a language deemed as “broken” and “fractured”, Amy Tan’s love for language allowed her to embrace the variations of English that surrounded her. In her short essay “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. Disallowing others to prove their misconceptions of her, Tan exerted herself in excelling at English throughout school. She felt a need to rebel against the proverbial view that writing is not a strong suit of someone who grew up learning English in an immigrant family. Attempting to prove her mastery of the English language, Tan discovered her writing did not show who she truly was. She was an Asian-American, not just Asian, not just American, but that she belonged in both demographics. Disregarding the idea that her mother’s English could be something of a social deficit, a learning limitation, Tan expanded and cultivated her writing style to incorporate both the language she learned in school, as well as the variation of it spoken by her mother. Tan learned that in order to satisfy herself, she needed to acknowledge both of her “Englishes” (Tan 128).
Focusing on times in her life where she was looked at for her colour and background rather than for her talents or attributes. In Mother Tongue Tan focuses on her mother’s English and how it defines who she perceives her mother to be and the times it has limited her mother. The stories are both about women facing prejudice however, one is from the perspective of the person experiencing it and the other from the perspective of someone helping their mother face prejudice. What comes out of Mukherjee’s novel seems rawer and personal whereas Tan seems further removed and more implicated in her own issues rather than the issues related to
Please note that this is not a straight comparison of texts – you need to focus on how ideas are represented within them.
English is an invisible gate. Immigrants are the outsiders. And native speakers are the gatekeepers. Whether the gate is wide open to welcome the broken English speakers depends on their perceptions. Sadly, most of the times, the gate is shut tight, like the case of Tan’s mother as she discusses in her essay, "the mother tongue." People treat her mother with attitudes because of her improper English before they get to know her. Tan sympathizes for her mother as well as other immigrants. Tan, once embarrassed by her mother, now begins her writing journal through a brand-new kaleidoscope. She sees the beauty behind the "broken" English, even though it is different. Tan combines repetition, cause and effect, and exemplification to emphasize her belief that there are more than one proper way (proper English) to communicate with each other. Tan hopes her audience to understand that the power of language- “the way it can evoke an emotion, a visual image, a complex idea, or a simple truth”- purposes to connect societies, cultures, and individuals, rather than to rank our intelligence.
Tan, Amy. "Mother Tongue." Across Cultures. Eds. Sheena Gillespie and Robert Singleton. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1999. 26-31.
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.
Naturally two books related to each other in this way have their similarities and differences in certain areas. Most of the similarities between both books fall in the areas of historical correctness and act...
Because it gives children specific opportunities to take part in the discourse of speaking. In Motherese utterances are simplified; notation patterns are distinctive; extra information is given for clarification and questions invite direct participation. Adults will often expand on a child's speech and correct what they have said, For example: A child says "where my toys gone" and the parent corrects the child saying "where have my toys gone. " Motherese differs quite markedly from speech between two adults. In Motherese these key features are apparent: *Vocabulary is simplified so that concrete objects are named in broad categories, for example: dog rather than spaniel or Labrador.