Broken Language In Mother Tongue By Amy Tan

Improved Essays
When re-reading "Mother Tongue" By Amy Tan, the author has gone into details expressing a portion of her life growing up with the man Englishes that she has had. Between unconsciously switching from "proper" English to a " broken" form only spoken between her family, this has allowed her to overcome several adversities in her life. Due to these challenges, having a "limited" or "broken" language it still has made an impact and impression on her mother.
The author's claim is that, even in her love of the language, and experience, she is not able to fully master the English language. Through several experiences that she has come across, even with "wrought" (p.20) phrases, she has been able to become self-aware of the languages that she bears.

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    When her mother had a CAT scan done to see if she had a brain tumor Tan felt ashamed with herself for being ashamed of her mother’s tongue. When her mother went to the hospital to get the results of the CAT scan the doctors would not give her the results and said they could not find them. After hearing this Tan called the hospital and in her perfect English asked for the results, the differences in how she was treated versus her mother experience was shocking. The doctors found the results quickly, then gave them to her mother. After this event in Tan’s life, she was no longer ashamed of her mother’s tongue.…

    • 724 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Assignment 7-1 Analysis

    • 1610 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Amy Tan talks about how growing up with her mothers "broken English" made things more difficult due to the lack of respect that others give when they hear the simple English. Tan addresses how when she became an English major teachers tried to steer her away because it was not her strongest suit. She learned that since there are many types of English she should write her stories in ways that her mother can read them with ease. Even if you live in America it does not mean that you are completely American. The author of "Mother Tongue" addresses this issue from her experiences growing up in California.…

    • 1610 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    1- In the article “the nomads of language” the author Ariel Dorfman claims that people from Colombian villages took their ancestors’ bones as a reminder of their history and to remain connected to the people who generated them. Until now people when they migrate, they could take their family pictures with them. According to Dorfman, not all people carry their ancestors’ bones to the new land, but all of them carry their own language to the migrant country. Language conveys people’s history, traditions, customs. Dorfman says “to defy the fluctuation of time and geography” these villagers assumed that taking their ancestors’ bone would assist them to withstand the change in culture and language.…

    • 786 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    “Broken” English negatively impacts immigrants on a daily basis. A great example of this negative impact is shown through “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan. Tan’s parents fled from China in the 1940’s with many other people because of China’s Cultural Revolution and when they came to America, they had trouble assimilating with Americans. Tan, on the other hand, had a less difficult time adapting to the American Culture because she was born in America. In Mother Tongue, Tan begins the passage by explaining how powerful language is and then continues on to tell stories that help prove her point.…

    • 1226 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It gave her uncomfortable feelings and forced her to blush if her mother was speaking. Only when she got older she realized her own mistake – judging by the way the person talks, instead of the way he or she thinks. It made Amy Tan perceive that her own “perfect English”, which she used to implement in her early writing, does not stand a chance and that it is boring and useless. She decided to write in the simple, the “most full” language, so people like her mother would understand it. Her mother and her “broken English” created the writer with a unique style of presentation.…

    • 808 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In The Mother Tongue, author Bill Bryson asks a variety of questions about English. These questions range from wondering about how we can be overwhelmed and underwhelmed but not whelmed with to why colonel is pronounced with an r when one does not exist in the word. The overall purpose of Bill Bryson’s book is to determine why English is the way it is today. Bill Bryson dives into the history and evolution of English through the appeals of ethos, pathos, and logos, the best example starting with the list on page 71. Bill Bryson uses pathos in his tone and ethos to provide information in order to seem credible.…

    • 536 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Amy Tan Mother Tongue

    • 626 Words
    • 3 Pages

    For example, she noticed herself saying this: “not waste money that way”. ( Tan 180)However, nobody commented on the way she said it; she realized that this has become a normal way of speaking with family. Meanwhile, with other, people, like in a speech Amy gave, she found herself speaking with “nominalized forms, past perfect tenses, conditional phrases, and all the forms of standard English” that she had learned in school( Tan 182). “Broken English’ would always be a part of how she spoke, just not all the time because of different circumstances in…

    • 626 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The writers’ method of writing is clear and well thought out, but there is also the matter of what is actually being communicated, as appose to how she gets her thoughts across. While Tan explains the difficulties that her mother has with communicating clearly, she makes it clear that she has an unwavering respect for her mother, regardless of her misgivings and barriers. Although there aren’t many references to this fact directly in the text, it’s a kind of undertone that sets in with the reader, possibly without even being noticed. The writer does an exceptional job conveying this idea subtly, and without depositing it into the text. This is an example of how Tan has honed into her writing skills, while also using her natural abilities and personal identity to communicate…

    • 921 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Mother would tell her that in order for her to get a good job she would “..need to speak English well”. Tan uses personal stories of her relationship with her mother, and how her mother’s “limited and broken” English has made an impact on her life. Tan tries to show that even though her mother’s English may be described as broken, it can be understood and does not determine her intelligence. This is evident through her quote, “ I wanted to capture what language ability tests can never reveal: her intent, her passion, her imagery, the rhythms of her speech, and the nature of her thoughts” (par 21-22). Although people frowned upon her mother’s accent, she was fond of her and refused to believe that her mother’s intelligence was…

    • 840 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Amy Tan style of writing came from culture impact of the third generation therefore Amy work was highly inspired by her American up bring and her chinese background. Most of Tan’s novel have one similar connection the importance of mother daughter relationship. The Joy Luck Club was made up into sixteen stories each about club members and American born daughters who immigrated from china. The mothers and daughters share stories of there lives about their families in china and the families that they have in the united states. Amy Tan theme of the novel focuses on mother daughter relationship in both culture and also focus past an present generation.…

    • 817 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Writing About Writing Authors write for different reasons, at times it is to inform the reader on a particular or several subjects, others it is to persuade the reader on a particular opinion. It does not matter which reason the writer is using to convey their opinion, a few things must remain true. The Author must be able to show his conviction, while remaining subjective and must be able to address their subject to their audience.…

    • 1052 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As the essay progresses, Tan learns to accept her mother’s broken english and uses it as inspiration for her writings.…

    • 927 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Rhetorical Arrangement of "Mother Tongue" by Amy Tan Amy Tan, in her narrative novel - "Mother Tongue", recounts her thoughts of her mother 's "broken English". Tan 's purpose is to explicitly express the influences on her life exerted by "Mother Tongue", in order to attract readers with similar feelings and experience. She employs delicate rhetorical arrangements such as classification order, narrative anecdotes, and comparison. These delicate rhetorical arrangements are effectively beneficial to Tan 's purpose of writing this short novel.…

    • 813 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    When I came to the United States, I was educated and spoke English. It was British English; the pronunciation, spellings of some words and some of the grammar were completely different. When I enrolled in middle school, everybody made fun of me; all the students thought I was not smart because I could not communicate with them in American English. However, it was not just hard to communicate with other men, but it was also hard to communicate with women because I am a man. I believe that there is a difference in how individuals communicate; it all depends on a person’s gender and the language he or she grew up speaking.…

    • 1044 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Grounded by Language In Mother Tongue, Amy Tan begins her short story by giving the audience prior knowledge that Tan is not a scholar of English and she is not able to give much more than her past knowledge on the English language. She then proceeds to give the readers an idea of how much she is fascinated by language itself and gives it a grading scale from complex english to simple English. Tan presents her short story by giving the readers a recent experience that made her rethink the past, present, and future.…

    • 1004 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays