Mother Tongue By Amy Tan Analysis

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.

Summary of "Mother Tongue" by Amy Tan In "Mother Tongue, Amy Tan writes about how her mother 's broken English affects her life. She begins this narrative essay by talking about the day she became aware of the different forms of English that she was using at home and during formal events. Amy says, "The talk was going along well enough, until I remembered one major difference that made the whole talk sound wrong. My mother was in the room. And it was perhaps the first time she had heard me give a lengthy speech, using the kind of English I have never used with her" (Tan 1).

After the man falls asleep, one can hear Amy speaking. She explains her

“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”.

During Christmas, Tan is worrying about how Robert is going react about their culture. Tan’s mom sees that she does not like the culture of her family in front of Robert. Furthermore, her mom does not want her daughter to be ashamed of her family and her culture. The best way for Tan’s mom to teach her a lesson is to follow their culture on her way to cook and act, and she says something unique, “Your only shame is to have a shame.” Its change the way she thinks after year later (111).

In addition to the excerpt from “Balboa” in “Mother Tongue” She talks about how her mother 's english affected her. “... 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.” (Mother Tongue pg )

She states how whenever her mother talked, many only understood about “80 to 90 percent of what she was saying” or ”some say they understand none of it, as if she were speaking pure Chinese” (Tan 179). This problem was difficult for Tan as is later led to problems in various experiences as she grew up. She brings in how many people believed “English reflected the quality of what she had to say. That is, because she expressed them imperfectly her thoughts were then imperfect” (Tan 180). A doctor once refused CAT scan results to her mother because of her “imperfect”

When she was young, she could not process the way her father raised and treated her, so she believed everything he said. When she is able to understand, her tone changes and becomes clinical and critical remembering the way he constantly let her

The novel Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, is about a girl named Melinda, who shows signs of depression throughout the story. She has no friends and is hated by people she doesn’t even know. This is because she called the cops at a party, where she was raped. Anderson includes literary elements to show how Melinda is depressed. Throughout the novel, she uses many different literary elements to show Melinda’s conflict.

Her personal experience is socially and theoretically constructed and emotions play an essential role in the process of identity formation. Her identity is not fixed, which is portrayed by inquisitiveness that her own mother and Aunt thought she was possessed, enhanced and made this story an enriching experience. The family is the first agent of socialization, as the story illustrates, even the most basic of human activities are learned and through socialization people

Even though, she tried to learn the language again she was not able to digest all the part of the

The vividness and lucidity of the details Welty uses to describe memories of her mother, convey the value and intensity of those experiences and

While reading the story, you can tell in the narrators’ tone that she feels rejected and excluded. She is not happy and I’m sure, just like her family, she wonders “why her?” She is rejected and never accepted for who she really is. She is different. She’s not like anyone else

At first she refers to him as “it”, but once she realizes there is no barrier to communication her comfort level increases. Nancy Kress uses one of David Seed’s themes: language to show how it can comfort us. Seed states, “When novelists began to address the problem of other languages, they tended to draw on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis that our worldview is shaped by our language and also to show how language could be caught up in power play. ”(Seed 44)

As a result, the situation validates that the parents’ divorce impacted the narrator’s life and resulted to change her perception on how to approach her mother. Furthermore, the narrator fears upon meeting her mother since the divorce was also the result of her traumatic realization; Which is the stealing of “Persian Carpet” alluded the mother’s extra-marital affair influence the thought that their family relationships could not be mended. The narrator’s emotions were overflowing when she met her mother that