Essay 1: Why is Language So Powerful? Most people may think a language is just a tool for communication, but a language is much more like a symbol of power. A language could be used to decide an individual 's personality, knowledge, or even social status. In Amy Tan 's, "Mother Tongue" and James Baldwin 's, "If Black English Isn 't a Language, Then Tell Me What Is" both authors mention the struggle of enunciating, but also how language could unite people . Generally, natives tend to treat foreigners unintentionally different from their own because they can feel a barrier, a strange foreign language, which caused them to distance themselves from the others. Only those that speak the same language would unconsciously unify and form a community.
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When Tan talks about how she feels "ashamed" of her mother 's English and how her mother was looking down by others. For instance, when Tan 's mother goes to "department stores... banks... restaurants... people... did not take her seriously... not give her good service..."(Tan). All of this was the outcome of the way she pronounces English and it was just because of her "tongue". Similarly, when Baldwin says that a person in the different region will have a various way to pronounce a language and depend on what they were learned in school. As a result of that, people "in Paris speaks a subtly...different language from... man living in Marseilles..."(Baldwin). Both Tan and Baldwin affirm in their unique styles of displaying ideas of how a language could affect an individual 's social status or treatment. When Tan 's mother wants to get her "CAT scan of brain tumors" from the hospital, the doctors refused to give her the "scan" and did not even try to apologize. Also, they "would not give any information"(Tan) even though Tan 's mother told them that she is afraid because some of her family died by "brain tumors". After a while, they decided to call Tan, and with her flawless English they eventually promised to give her the "scan" on the next
When Tan talks about how she feels "ashamed" of her mother 's English and how her mother was looking down by others. For instance, when Tan 's mother goes to "department stores... banks... restaurants... people... did not take her seriously... not give her good service..."(Tan). All of this was the outcome of the way she pronounces English and it was just because of her "tongue". Similarly, when Baldwin says that a person in the different region will have a various way to pronounce a language and depend on what they were learned in school. As a result of that, people "in Paris speaks a subtly...different language from... man living in Marseilles..."(Baldwin). Both Tan and Baldwin affirm in their unique styles of displaying ideas of how a language could affect an individual 's social status or treatment. When Tan 's mother wants to get her "CAT scan of brain tumors" from the hospital, the doctors refused to give her the "scan" and did not even try to apologize. Also, they "would not give any information"(Tan) even though Tan 's mother told them that she is afraid because some of her family died by "brain tumors". After a while, they decided to call Tan, and with her flawless English they eventually promised to give her the "scan" on the next