A Rhetorical Analysis Of Mother Tongue By Amy Tan

In the article “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan, a Chinese-American writer, shares her idea that we all speak a different kind of “Englishes” unconsciously and that we are sometimes categorized by the way we speak. Tan supports her argument by giving examples of her family's cultural background and describing how her mother was discriminated by retailers, stockbrokers, and doctors because her mother’s English seemed improper. Tan explains that language does not have to be uniformed and completely structured to be understood, but can be simple, filled with passion and meaning. Tan admits that at a certain point in her life, she saw her mother’s language as “broken” and embarrassing to listen to. However, Tan's opinion changed when she realized that …show more content…
The first time Tan notice of the type of Englishes she spoke was when she was giving a speech about her book, “The Joy Club”, when Tan saw her mother in the audience she remembered one major difference that made the whole speech sound wrong to her, she realized that she had been using the intellectual language that she learned from books, a language she had never used with her mother. The second time she noticed that her English changed was when she was talking to her mother and husband, she said: “not waste money that way” (pg.1) which she describes as an intimate language used only by her family. Tan explains that the language her mother speaks is different than the American English, and although it is difficult to understand her sometimes, her mother actually understands more than one may think when they listening to her speak. When Tan was young, she would often have to call people over the phone and pretend that she was her mother in order to get people to pay attention to her and take her more seriously. For instance, she had to talk to her mother’s stockbroker for not sending a check when he said he was, “I had to get on the phone and say in an adolescent voice that was not very convincing,