The Joy of Language In the passage “Mother Tongue”, the author Amy Tan writes about the relationship between her, her mother and the English language. Tan uses various rhetorical strategies to convey the experiences and thoughts she has when it comes to the influence of language on her life and those around her. Through the use of these persuasive language devices, Tan shares what she has learned growing up with different Englishes in her personal and social life. This, in turn, ultimately enables her to convey her love for the English language and the power that it holds. At the start of this passage, Tan introduces the idea of growing up with various forms of English. One of the rhetorical strategies she uses to do this includes repetition. The author reminisces about a speech on The Joy Luck Club that recently made her come to realize these Englishes existed. She repeatedly refers to this speech as ‘the talk’, giving her narrative an easygoing, laid back quality. …show more content…
Reflecting on them, she expresses the meaning her mother's English holds with her and emphasizes its importance with the metaphor, “It's my mother tongue.” She expands upon it in her statement right after; the use of parallelism between her description of her mother tongue, “Her language, as I hear it, is vivid, direct, full of observation and imagery,” and its impact reinforcing, ”That was the language that helped shape the way I saw things, expressed things, made sense of the world.” Tan's inclusion of these childhood stories appeals to the reader’s sense of connection with her through the use of exemplification. This strategy focuses on Pathos by placing the reader in the author’s shoes and effectively conveying how, though difficult, growing up and living with these Englishes has molded her perspective on the power of