Amy Tan Ethos Pathos Logos

Q1. Tan opens her essay by saying, “I am not a scholar of English or literature” and then states later on “I am a writer” in order to purposefully contrast the meanings behind the two statements. A writer and a scholar of English/literature are two different things according to Tan. A scholar of English is someone who studies the language and a writer is someone who enjoys and loves the language. Tan juxtaposes these statements in order to express her relationship with the English language and how she is someone who loves it and not a person who only studies it. Tan establishes ethos with this juxtaposition by giving an argument on what her definition of English is, despite what society usually defines it as. Q2. The anecdotes further her

Tan appeals to logos in various ways throughout her essay. When Tan describes her and her mother’s experience at the hospital involving the CAT scan, she appeals to logos. Tan’s says that, “ She said she had spoken very good English, her best English, no mistakes. Still, she said, the hospital did not apologize when they said they had lost the CAT scan and she had come for nothing…they would not give her any more information until the next time…she said she would not leave until the doctor called her daughter, me, who spoke in perfect English…we had assurances the CAT scan would be found…apologies for any suffering my mother had gone through…,”(Para. 13). This shows an appeal to logos because Tan’s mother’s language was preventing her from being a respected patient by the hospital. Due to the fact the the doctor could not understand her, the doctor treated her mother with disrespect. Only when he spoke to someone with perfect English, Tan, the doctor was respectful. Someone’s language is apart of who they are and when that language does not correlate with the rest of society’s, then they are outcast and treated as so. This is shown through Tan’s explanation of what happened to her mother at the hospital due to her mother’s