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A Thematic Analysis Of Mother Tongue By Amy Tan

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The story I chose for my thematic analysis is Mother Tongue by Amy Tan. In the story we see Amy explore the idea of identity and language and how they are combined with one another. She discusses broken English and how her mother being straight from China and Amy being a first generation Asian-American here in the United States. Within the story, she discusses the factors of this broken English and is aware of the discrimination that comes with it in comparison to standard English. Tan would describe her mother's English as “broken” due to her lack of English, which she was also ashamed of she states how “I believed her English reflected the quality of what she had to say.” When Tan just saw it that way because she thought others would see …show more content…

Tan wrote Mother Tongue to get her audience to realize they should have an open mind and to be more accepting of all forms of language. Tan informs her audience from all backgrounds on how prejudices might arise due to the English language in paragraph 10 she introduces her mom’s perspective so we as readers can understand the struggles that come with speaking broken English. By showing the readers this, it makes them sympathize with the author by including these real-life examples. Establishing the fact that her mother is aware of the downfall of not knowing how to perfectly speak the language in paragraphs 11 and 12 she quotes both herself and her mother, when dealing with the stockbroker on the phone tans mother states, “why he don’t send me a check already two weeks late, so mad he lied to me losing me money” Tan’s response is different from her mom’s “yes I'm getting rather concerned you had agreed to send me the check two weeks ago but it hasn't arrived” it shows the reader that it is not hard to try and understand someone's imperfect language that people just choose to act dumb and ignorant also shows how they try to take advantage and they to silence those like Tan’s

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In the article “Mother Tongue,” Amy Tan cogitates about how her mother’s spoken English is compared to the Standard English language. Tan believes that language is not only a tool of communication, but also a sociological tool of measuring self worth. She’d always loved language, but never had she appeared expressive and rhetoric in front of her mother, due to the fact that her immigrant mother could not speak the Standard English language, but rather a “broken” English language. She discloses that between her mother, the outside world, and herself, only three languages exist: “broken” English (as her mother speaks to her), “simple” (as she speaks to her mother), and “watered down” (as she translates her mother’s tangled up broken English to

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Mother Tongue was written by Amy Tan who is famous for her writings of her experiences as a Chinese immigrant growing up and living in American culture. Her primary purpose is to explain to the reader her interpretation of standard English and broken. In her essay Tan shares stories of her mother's broken English and her it affected her life and how people took advantage of her mother's broken English. Tan's intended audience are people who are unaware of people like her mother's limited English who are taken advantage of in everyday life. The experiences Tan shares with reader is an emotion inducing strategy which Tan uses throughout her writing and it is proved to be very effective.

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The power of language 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.

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Mother Tongue was originally part of a speech that Amy Tan had given while she participated in a panel entitled,”Englishes: Whose English is it anyway?” in 1989. The author describes in detail how she finds herself using various forms of English, depending on who she is around. She also makes the point on how hard life can be for someone who doesn’t speak good English.

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These two short stories, Mother tongue by Amy Tan and Chocolat by Lasse Halleström, utilize literary elements to convey alienation from society (person vs society). Both Chocolat and Mother Tongue show mothers being alienated. Amy Tan’s mother because she’s a chinese-american woman whose english is “broken. ''and Chocolat, where Vivane (mother of Anouk.) isn’t religious, in a town of heavily religious people. There are multiple instances where this happens to the both of them, an example of Amy Tan’s mother facing this is.

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By providing Mrs. Tan’s speech, Tan demonstrates to her readers how her mother’s English is not perfect in a grammatical sense, but it is understandable. The audience gets the impression that Tan’s mother speaks in “broken” English, but it is understandable at what is she trying to say. As well as having a greater understanding on how Tan felt angry when some people labeled Mrs. Tan unworthy to listen to because she had difficulty speaking English.

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In the essay “Mother Tongue " Amy tans experiences very matured situations as she had to be her mother’s entrepreneur for all her life. Many children may have already experience translating for their parents in many different situations. Many parents English and grammar are pronounced wrong and feel embarrassed to speak so they tell their children to translate for them or to make calls for them pretending it's the mother or the father. Tan used English language and grammatical speaking to help her mother translate.

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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".

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Language is used to convey a message as well as connect people to a particular culture or ethnicity he or she identifies with. People who share the same language share a bond and pass their history through language. In chapter one of The Skin That We Speak: Thoughts on Language and Culture in the Classroom Joanne Kilgour Dowdy speak about growing up in Trinidad and her mother insisting on her speaking in the colonizer's language rather than her native Trinidadian language. Joanne Kilgour Dowdy felt as if her identity was being pushed to the side when she was forced to speak “Colonized English” when she was at school or around the social elite of her community, and felt ridiculed from her peers for speaking proper as if she was white or of the elite social class. Dowdy major concern was how to have the freedom to go back and forth from home, language to the public language without feeling judged from both sides of her

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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.

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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).

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Tan talks about the different types of English she used and learned while she was growing up. Tan’s English wasn’t all so great when she was in grade school but in college she switched to an English major from pre-med. English was Tan’s second language so she wasn’t so encouraged to become a writer. Others could not understand her mother’s “broken English”, but Tan could because she grew up listening to it, which is why she named this story “Mother tongue”.

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Another point is Amy says that her mother is not hard to understand, it 's that other people find it hard to comprehend her talking. People who do not know her mother well probably won 't give themselves time to connect with her mother 's English. As described by Amy from her personal view that her mother 's English was "perfectly clear, perfectly natural" (Tan, 2006, p. 21). Specific evidence that supports was the author stating, "Her language, as I hear it, is vivid, direct, full of observation and imagery." (Tan, 2006, p. 20).

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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. All throughout the reading she uses many personal stories and personal experiences on how difficult it was for her mother to go through her everyday life.

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