Language is an important factor in everyday life. For people who are not English-proficient, this statement is self-evident. When an individual does not understand the language of their environment it is often difficult to keep up with everyone else. People who cannot read, speak or understand the language of their peers face trouble because of their language barrier. Limited communication is a tolling setback in a world where everyday life is shaped by language, where words have an impact. Published author Amy Tan speaks as a bilingual child of a parent whose first language is not English in her article “Mother Tongue” and analyzes the effects of growing up in a bilingual household.
In “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan, the author discusses her take on certain struggles faced by bilingual individuals. She discusses not only how it has shaped her life, but the
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She speaks of how growing up in a bilingual household affected her but never how not knowing English affected her mother. The reader never receives any insight as to what her mother’s feelings about her broken English are. To truly capture what it is like to be affected by language – or in this case, lack thereof – Tan cannot rely on her experience alone, as she grew up a full English speaker. When mentioning the story with the stockbroker, Amy Tan demonstrates the frustration of speaking as a translator but does not show what her mother must have felt knowing she needed a child to call in her place. While it’s stressful on the translator, the person who relies on the translator is affected as well. Using Amy Tan’s story of her mother at the hospital as an example, she does a limited job to capture her mother’s feelings during the dilemma. While this anecdote holds credibility, emotion and logic, it doesn’t get into the nitty-gritty of the person whose experience mattered most in that situation: her