Mother Tongue by Amy Tan America is much diversified; it is filled with people with different backgrounds. Many people settled here in America as an immigrant to have more opportunities to start a better life. Many people came here with nothing but their cultures, knowledge, beliefs and behaviors which they shared amongst others in society. In society, starting with the earlier generation there was shared culture of classes, although everyone portrays immigrants as the lowest class. They are always disliked particularly for coming here as an immigrant, even though most people have very similar backgrounds, whether they want to admit it or not. It is how one holds themselves in society. People are divided into different social classes and are
While talking amongst intellectuals and in professional settings like her speech seminar, she spoke in Standard English using what she learned and adapted from what was taught in school. She realized there was a slight difference in the way she communicated with people she is close to. There was a pattern in the way she speaks around them. For example her mother and her husband can’t tell the difference whether she is speaking “broken, fractured or limited” English. Even though her mom can’t speak “perfect” Standard English, don’t misjudge because she can actually understand a lot. She reads and comprehends a lot from reading the Forbes report, listening to Wall Street Week, talking with her stockbroker to reading books. Some of her friends tell her that they can understand 50 percent of what her mother is saying. Some only understand 80 to 90 percent. Some say they understand none of what she is saying, as if she were speaking pure Chinese. But to Amy, her mother 's English is perfectly clear, perfectly natural. People all around judged her as an outcast because it wasn’t perfect English as people expected. Amy witnessed firsthand examples of how her mom was being mistreated repeatedly. The fact that people did not take her seriously, they did not give her good service, they pretended not to understand her, or even acted as if they did not hear her in many places was a clear sign she was being taken advantage of. That resorted her mother to realize her simple English wasn’t essential to converse with others with the help of her daughter. She needed her daughter to impersonate her over the phone just to get her point across. Amy now notices most immigrants and families usually influence one another by the way they speak. That plays as a big role in shaping the language of
In their articles, Chang Rae-Lee and Amy Tan establish a profound ethos by utilizing examples of the effects their mother-daughter/mother-son relationships have had on their language and writing. Lee’s "Mute in an English-Only World" illustrates his maturity as a writer due to his mother’s influence on growth in respect. Tan, in "Mother Tongue," explains how her mother changed her writing by first changing her conception of language. In any situation, the ethos a writer brings to an argument is crucial to the success in connecting with the audience; naturally a writer wants to present himself/herself as reliable and credible (Lunsford 308). Lee and Tan, both of stereotypical immigrant background, use their memories of deceased mothers to build credibility in their respective articles.
Language can defined the type of person you become and it has an influence on our choices as well as lifestyle. Language itself has become a way of seeing life in a different perspectives. Tan discusses the many ways in which language has played a role in her life and the result from it. I can relate to Tan’s experience to some extent because I come from a bilingual household too. Just like Tan, I am one of my mother’s main source of communication with people who don’t speak spanish. I believe the notion of Tan’s “Mother Tongue” is stating that just because someone who cannot speak the English language perfectly, is considered less intelligent to many compared to those who can understand and speaks it fluently. But what makes us all unique is that it is rare to find two or more people who speak the same exact English. Even though both Tan and I helped our parent and come from different ethnic backgrounds; Tan came from a Chinese family while I came from a Hispanic family. We both share similar ideas about the language spoken in our household, and it was also a big challenge for both of us while we were being raised by an immigrant parent who spoke only “limited English”(Tan
Demetria Martínez’s Mother Tongue is divided into five sections and an epilogue. The first three parts of the text present Mary/ María’s, the narrator, recollection of the time when she was nineteen and met José Luis, a refuge from El Salvador, for the first time. The forth and fifth parts, chronologically, go back to her tragic experience when she was seven years old and then her trip to El Salvador with her son, the fruit of her romance with José Luis, twenty years after she met José Luis. And finally the epilogue consists a letter from José Luis to Mary/ María after her trip to El Salvador. The essay traces the development of Mother Tongue’s principal protagonists, María/ Mary. With a close reading of the text, I argue how the forth chapter, namely the domestic abuse scene, functions as a pivotal point in the Mother Tongue as it helps her to define herself.
A person's language can often influence success and happiness. America is viewed as a melting pot for numerous different people and their respective languages. Language is so vital in our society that a person of diverse ethnic backgrounds can face many tribulations throughout their everyday life. Many renowned writers and other professionals have expressed their personal opinion about the value of words over the last few years. Chinese-American author Amy Tan is one of the many writers who understand the importance of the simplest words in the English language.
Amy tan was raised by her Asian mother that she did not speak proper English “broken English”. The strategies that Amy Tan used in the story made her realized different English that she uses in her life. She was giving many speeches to a lot of people and along with her speeches she realized the different English that she never uses with her mother, when she was talking about her book The Joy Luck Club. She noticed her different English when she was walking with her mother and husband; she said “not waste money that way” her mom or her husband did not realized her different English.
The Essay written by Amy Tan titled 'Mother Tongue' concludes with her saying, 'I knew I had succeeded where I counted when my mother finished my book and gave her understandable verdict' (39). The essay focuses on the prejudices of Amy and her mother. All her life, Amy's mother has been looked down upon due to the fact that she did not speak proper English. Amy defends her mother's 'Broken' English by the fact that she is Chinese and that the 'Simple' English spoken in her family 'Has become a language of intimacy, a different sort of English that relates to family talk' (36). Little did she know that she was actually speaking more than one type of English. Amy Tan was successful in providing resourceful information in every aspect. This gave the reader a full understanding of the disadvantages Amy and her mother had with reading and writing. The Essay 'Mother Tongue' truly represents Amy Tan's love and passion for her mother as well as her writing. Finally getting the respect of her critics and lucratively connecting with the reaction her mother had to her book, 'So easy to read' (39). Was writing a book the best way to bond with your own mother? Is it a struggle to always have the urge to fit in? Was it healthy for her to take care of family situations all her life because her mother is unable to speak clear English?
An individual’s background is where one comes from and how he or she is raised. Tan is Chinese American. She has a traditional Chinese mother who speaks “broken” English. Tan states that, “It has always bothered me that I can think of no way to describe it other than ‘broken’, as if it were damaged and needed to be fixed[. . .]” (Tan 43). Tan is an American school girl. As Tan listens to her mother use that type of dialect, it causes her perception of her mother to be distraught. Tan believed it “[. . .] reflected the quality of what [her mother] had to say” (Tan 43). For instance, department store clerks, bank employees and restaurant workers will ignore her mother when they can not understand her. Tan is a writer who loves the use of language. She says, “Language is the tool of my trade. And I use them all-all the Englishes I grew up with” (Tan 41). She is able to adapt her dialect to her audience. With her mother, she uses “broken” English; with her colleagues, she uses correct English grammar.
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...
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.
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).
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.
Amy Tan, the author of The Joy Luck Club, talks about in the article, Mother Tongue, how her mother’s broken English would affect her daily life, how people treat her because of it, and how she feels about her mother’s language. She also talks about when she was in school she was pushed towards science and maths because of her cultural background, as an Asian American student; when she really wanted to write English and become an English major. In the beginning paragraph of the article, Tan explains how she has to depict the different Englishes she uses throughout her daily life in writing and how she is able to deal with it. Tan recently learned about the different types of English she uses daily. When speaking to a group of people about her book, The Joy Luck Club, she didn’t realize a difference in the way she was speaking until she saw her mother sitting in the room listening to her speak.
The problem started with her mother because she spoke broken English. She had a hard time during her life when she moved to the US because she couldn’t speak English well. The first reason was mixed the English with Chinese, and they used code. The family didn’t practice the language. On one day Amy Tan 's mother exposed to a lot of attitude and that’s bothering her because when she spoke to the native speaker some people understood 50% and the other did not understand her. Since she wants to order something they didn’t give her a nice service, or tried to ignore her, but Amy Tan always tried to fix the problem for her mother because she can speak the English clearly. Amy Tan 's mother felt depressing and Her daughter decided to make her mother glad, so she made a huge deal for her mother because she made her mother tried to speak English by explaining the English words to Chinese, and that’s made the English for her mother more easily just to be in touched with the American people. Even Amy Tan 's mother was struggling with English, but she plain in her life goal that’s mean nothing impossible to do it, and everything from learning could be possible. If anyone would something they
In the article, Tan furthers her point when she states that her mother, someone who uses a "broken" dialect, can do several things that the author herself struggles with, and does so despite what people
Amy Tan is the author of the essay Mother Tongue. In this essay, she explains how the power of language has influenced her life through her mother and the experiences they have had together concerning her mother's English-speaking ability, or lack there of. She was born into a Chinese family where both Chinese and English were spoken. She is sensitive to and accepting of people's lingual differences. She talks about how the inability to speak English well in America gives others the wrong impression: "...everything is limited, including people's perceptions of the limited English speaker" (Tan 13). She is saying here that prolific English speakers place limitations on people who have limited English-speak...