Mother Tongue Amy

Amy Tan's goal has changed slightly. While the Author wants to show the effect language has on one's daily life and how we perceive others who are different, she also wants to show how the language barrier affects our society overall.

The United States is made up of some of the most diverse and interesting cultures in the world. Jamila Lyiscott proves this by showing her different dialects and how they are all equally important. Lyiscott believes that the way she speaks towards her parents, towards her friends, and towards her colleagues are all one in the same.

We all have some form of language limitations, no matter where we come from and what our background is. “Mother tongue” by Amy Tan and “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” by Gloria Anzaldua both share similar themes in their stories that demonstrate how they both deal with how different forms of the same language are portrayed in society. In both stories they speak about what society declares the right way of speech and having to face prejudgment, the two authors share their personal experiences of how they’ve dealt with it. Both authors go in detail about their ethnic backgrounds and blend their language for us to better understand throughout their story.

Like the narrator’s father, he notices the family’s cultural identity is slowly dying. His wife, a native Malaysian, is adopting a new identity as a “sales clerk at [Woodworks]” (340) in Canada. In marriage, a couple is supposed to share the responsibility to raise their children and support each other. However, she may have given up on the teaching responsibility from the moment the language “never came easily to [the daughter]” (340). Ultimately, the father is solely responsible handing down his family’s cultural and social roots to his children. The father tried to teach his daughter the culture through rice cooking, but she fails to replicate the method; whereas the brother avoids the cultural lessons by integrating himself into the local culture. This heavily suggests the brother rejects speaking the language and the culture, compared to the daily exposure of the Canadian culture and speaking English.

growing up in a household that chiefly spoke “broken” English, and a reflection on how this

She emphasizes the recognition of “cross-cultural” communication is beneficial to repair the conversational issues (Tannen 264). She proposes couples to improve their relationship by learning differences, adjusting conversational styles, and changing attitude. Learning differences is crucial to couples at the beginning of improvement, which helps couples to achieve mutual acceptance. Ideally, couples change their communication patterns according to their partners’ preference. Even though men or women do not change their habits, they still accept partners’ habits instead of complaining. As Tannen claims, “Once the problem is understood, improvement comes naturally”

“Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan is the short story about the importance of language and how it is a key for communication. Tan emigrated from China to Oakland, California and she was a first generation of Asian-American. The author is very fascinated by the language and she believes that the language has the power of emotions, a visual image, a complex idea, and a simple truth. She also believes that there are many different types of “Englishes”.

Our identity is a place upon many attributes of a human being. Whether the person is someone who goes on promoting themselves to the world or not, and it shows how people communicate to others around them. Language is one of the main components that unveils the person’s identity in their everyday life, and they are many different ways to approach a person’s language. Relating to the article of Yiyun Li, “To Speak is to Blunder,” she knows two languages that has its positive and negative outcomes in her life. I to relate to her understanding of language, but a different view of what language means to me. This how a language connects towards those who can relate to other people and may or may not have a deeper relationship

In Amy Tan‘s essay “Mother Tongue” (1999), she describes her life with her mother in America and how the broken speech of her mother has had an influence on her life. Amy Tan talks about the different “Englishes" she speaks to communicate with different people. Also, she tells us about her love for English and how she becomes a famous writer in America. In her essay she tries to shows us that language, culture, and education shapes us into who we are and the more you study English the more you learn and English will change your life a lot. In fact, many people against Tan’s point of view that English is very useful and important. However, others, including me agree with Tan’s idea. Indeed, there are many reasons that agree with the author’s

For numerous amounts of people, with English being their second language, they have been described as having "Broken English". "Broken English" refers to a poorly spoken or ill-written version of the English language. One article called "Mother Tongue" by Amy Tan discusses the effects of growing up with a Chinese mother who has "Broken English". In fact, Tan deliberates about the limitations and criticism of growing up with her mother. Although Tan speaks articulate English, she still can comprehend with her mother 's "Broken English". In this article, Tan 's argue that her mother 's "Broken English" has caused unfairness, disinterest, and limitations throughout their life.

After reading Mother Tongue by Amy Tan, my perspective changed about the struggles for people who are not as good at English. All throughout this article Tan uses personal experience from her mom to show the readers the struggle while also using primary sources to back up her claim. All the evidence backs up her initial claim and as the reader your perspective changes after reading about how she personally was effected. The author 's main claim of Mother Tongue is to persuade people so respect people who struggle with English because she has serval personal connections, she has fact based proof, and she is an experienced writer on this topic and in general.

In her writing, Tan often describes her experiences as the child of Chinese immigrants, growing up in northern California and living in American culture. Tan explains how she has learned to embrace the many Englishes her mother speaks and how her background has also caused her to have different Englishes. While others classify her mother's English as "broken" she finds no fault in it. In Tan's view, just because something is broken does not necessarily mean that it is in need of fixing. In her essay, author Amy Tan addresses the connections between languages and cultures in describing the different Englishes her mother uses. Tan is able to convey the power of language in her writing through the significance of the title "Mother Tongue", by narrating from three different perspectives and through her diction.

Amy Tan’s purpose in her article “Mother Tongue” is to show the influence of her mother’s style of english. She also relates this to a more broad topic of the idea that there are many different types of english that people speak that are tailored to whoever they are speaking to. She begins this piece by stating plainly that she is not an english scholar. Instead of decreasing her credibility it actually increases it and paints this piece as a more personal set of observations rather than a bland overview of the entire language. By making it more personal it allows the reader to connect to the author because she seem like a normal person you might run into on the street rather than an isolated scholar. She also mentions that she is a writer and an english major which gives her credibility by implying that she has

The difference in language leads to miscommunication but the overlying consequence of it is lack of understanding and empathy for one another which leads to conflict. “Language takes on a metonymic relation to culture in Tan's portrayal of the gap between the mothers and daughters in The Joy Luck Club.” (Hamilton). The language barriers between the daughters and the mothers create the cultural barriers. Language barriers emphasize and directly influences cultural barriers. Cultural barriers prevent communication between people from all around the world, especially between the mothers and the daughters, and not necessarily figuratively. The language barrier between the mothers and the daughters can be symbolic.The lack of understanding and comprehension for one another creates a language barrier between the mothers and the daughters. “These kinds of explanations made me feel my mother and I spoke two different languages, which we did. I talked to her in English, she answered back in Chinese.” (Tan 84). Peoples' communicating leads to the spread of different ideas. Language connects societies figuratively and literally. Culture and language influence people extensively which allow people to be susceptible to miscommunication when a barrier is too vast. Familial relationships disrupt from language barriers. “Divergent perceptions and absence of a common language of communication ...they fail to fathom each other’s feelings and likes and dislikes” (Priya). Miscommunication between people creates rifts and lays pretense for tension and dispassion. Without communication, people become impatient and disassociate. “They see daughters who grow impatient when their mothers talk in Chinese, who think they are stupid when they explain things in fractured English”(Tan 31). Apprehension creates misunderstanding. Apathy negates relationships and destroys any chance of understanding.

The article 'Mother Tongue ' by author Amy Tan is about the variations in the English language the author uses in her life. She describes her English when giving a speech to a other people, English she uses when speaking to her mother, and English she uses in her writing. She tells of difficulties faced by both her mother and herself from these many differences.