Mother Tongue Thesis

In "Mother Tongue," Amy Tan discusses a recent discovery about the variations of the English language she has experienced. Throughout, she compares the English she uses when speaking with her mother to the English she had acquired in school. As a result, Tan describes her ability to shift from one dialect to the other. While Tan states that she does not often detect the differences while speaking, she has become aware of them in recent years. Her recollection of her childhood perception of the English her mother uses is Tan's driving point as she calls to others to understand the importance of literacy in all forms. Tan's perception of her mother's English as a child was the same as the word she used to describe it, limited (651). The relationship …show more content…
Most notably, the different form of English she possesses. She has three forms of English, scholarly English from college, basic English from grade school, and the English she uses with her mother. Which is why it was important to her that she portrayed each form in her book The Joy Luck Club. Although her ultimate audience for her book was her mother, she had also kept in mind students who were like her in school. Tan also highlights the literacy struggles of other Asian-American students like herself who struggled with English test in school. She explains that she believed the, “answers on English Test were always a judgement call” which was why her English scores were poor compared to her math (Tan 653). While her reader can sympathize with such students, Tan was one of them and can therefore understand the hardship. These are the students who, through no fault of their own scored lower in literacy test (Tan 655). Tan claims that the household that a child is born in affects the way they think, and it is the same with the language(652). Therefore, all forms of literacy are important not only for representation but also for the success of students who grow up in bilingual …show more content…
Altogether, the importance of literacy is different for others. Like the English test Tan refers to in her narrative, literacy is a “matter of opinion and personal experience,” (653). Tan makes it apparent that literacy does not determine intelligence. Furthermore, Tan describes the different forms of literacy that exist and how literacy should not be the single factor determine a person’s life path. Instead, literacy is a social construct that should empower others to include those who experience it in different