Amy Tan Final Exam In “My Mother’s English” by writer Amy Tan, we learned that her perception on her mother’s English had evolved over-time. As a writer Amy Tan feels that language is her way or tool of getting a point across, she even uses “All the English she grew up with”, meaning the fractured English her mother taught her. Tan says, “It is the sort of English that is our language of Intimacy, the English that relates to family talk, and the English that I grew up with”. Tan’s main point is that even though her mother speaks what some would call broken English, to her it’s beautiful to other “English speakers” it is abnormal. I think that her mother has been labeled or stereotyped.
Society has also played an important influence on both these Authors as Tanya Barrientos explains in Se Habla Espanol. Because of her families desire to have English to be the only spoken words in the home, she tells of how she grew up around few Latino’s. And that speaking Spanish reflected your social status of being poor, and that you where limited to a meager life of housekeeping and waiting tables. That even ambitions for ones future was frowned upon because of the language that her family denied to speak. This very thought by society is reflected in (3rd paragraph 489). “Your children are always behind, and you have the nerve to bring them
For example, "It has become our language of intimacy, a different sort of English that relates to family talk, the language I grew up with" (397). Tan is so used to hearing her mother talk in a "Broken" (398) English, which she does not seem to notice much of a difference between broken English and clear English. She grew up listening to her mother talk this way and has gotten used to it. This way when Tan and her mother talk it is how their family talks, their own special way they communicate to one another. Rodriguez shares this same family quality like Tan and her mother’s language.
Tan emphasizes that fact that her mother recognizes her opportunities and interaction in life are limited by her English. When Tan was young she used to have to call people on the phone and act as if she was her mother in order to get people to pay attention to her when she had to yell at her mother’s stockbroker for not sending a check. Another occasion Tan describes is when her mother went to the doctor to get her results of a CAT scan, the doctors ignored her. She makes Tan talk to the doctor that they apologize for losing her results of a CAT scan and solve the problem. Tan comes to the idea that the language spoken in the family, especially in immigrant families plays a large role in shaping the language of a child and opportunities in life.
The reason I chose this item is because in the book, the main character Pattyn Von Stratten used a journal write down all her troubles because her librarian Ms. Rose told her it would be good for her. The second item I chose was a diaper. I chose this item because all through the main characters life, she had to take care of herself and her six other younger sisters. Her mom and dad always made her change their diapers, feed them, and bathe them. The third item I chose was a ring.
Running Head: Compare and contrast essay on two writers A comparison on two writers named Amy Tan and Richard Rodriguez brought out many differences in the way they grew up learning English as a second language. Keith Brandon University of Maryland College Author Note This paper was prepared for writing 101S, taught by professor Goshert-Hossain. Two writers that both grew up learning English as a second language, struggling through the hardships of the experience brought upon many differences between the two; although the same in learning each had their own views of the subject. Through their experiences there were many differences between family life, how each writer learned, and what they are doing now to understand their English as a second language. Through their experiences there were many comparisons to suggest but some stood out more than others; such as, how each writer grew up learning do deal with their family and their English, and on that note what they are doing now to understand how their English language as a second language affects others.
Amy Tan explores the idea of variable language in her short essay Mother Tongue. Tan is the daughter of Chinese immigrants. She grows up watching her parents, especially her mother, struggle with learning the English language. While her mother does gain skill in speaking the English language, she never masters language in the sense that we expect of someone who lives in an English speaking country. As a child, Tan is embarrassed by her mother’s difficulty in language and eventually she sees growing up the child of an Asian immigrant home as the reason she struggled in school to excel in reading and writing.
Throughout the duration of the story, the mother talks on the telephone and reminisces. Olsen implicated many literary devices in “I Stand Here Ironing,” –foreshadowing and metaphor, just to name a couple. For example, at the beginning of the story, the mother was suggested by the counselor to meet with him/her to provide an insight of Emily so that they can help her. However, she does not seem interested in speaking with the counselor at all. In fact, she seems very disgusted.
I answered her back, yelling, 'There is! I go up to see the fairies!' Frances' mother, obviously, did not believe her daughter and sent her to the attic bedroom which she shared with her older cousin Elsie Wright. She also made sure to ask Elsie if she had seen these fairies, to which Elsie said she had. After being teased mercilessly, Elsie concocted a plan to fool the adults.
One rhetorical device Tan used was asyndeton. An example of that on page 403, “…grammatical phrases, burdened, it suddenly seemed to me, with nominalized forms, past perfect tenses, conditional phrases, all the forms of standard English that I learned in school and through books, the forms of English I did not use at home with my mother.” Another example, “…her intent, her passion, her imagery, the rhythms of her speech, and the nature of her thoughts.” There were many words in the sentence with frequent comma usage and no intervening conjunctions. In the author’s essay, many parts consisted of repeating the same word(s) in the beginning of sentences or clauses, which is the definition of anaphora. “I am not a scholar of English or literature. I cannot give you much more than personal opinions…I am a writer…I am someone who has always loved language.