This “broken” English limited even Tan’s own perception of her mother; she believed her mother’s imperfect English meant that her mother’s ideas and thoughts must be imperfect as well. When in public, people would pretend to not understand her mother or just flat out ignore her. Tan talks about being one of the main avenues of communication for her mother, pretending to be her on calls to a stockbroker, interpreting what her mother wished to say into formal English for others. She believed that due to her mother’s limitations that it would effectively limit her own possibilities in the future. As an adult, Tan takes great effort to point out that, although her mother speaks in “broken” English, this by no means lessens her mother’s intelligence; she reads the Forbes report, listens to Wall Street Week, and engages in daily calls with her stockbroker.
People may consider her mother tongue to be ‘broken’ or ‘fractured’, or in another way they consider them as ‘limited English’, where people tend to relate limited English and limited perception together. She felt ashamed that people look down on them due to their limited English speaking skills, to a point where people don’t treat them seriously. She also gives examples of the embarrassment that she has to pretend to be her mother and talk on the phone to solve problems
The second time she noticed one of her “Englishes” was when walking with her mother and husband, she said “not waste money that way” which for her is an intimate language used only by her family. Her mother’s “broken” English contradicts how much she actually understands, this reminds us that even though her mother’s English seem “broken” it does not reflect her intelligence. Even though her mother was categorized with limited ideas by the people she would to because of the way she spoke tan rejects the idea that her mother English is “limited” or “broken”. She emphasizes the fact that even her mother recognizes that her opportunities and interactions in life are limited by her English. When the author 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 like when she had to yell at her mother’s stockbroker for not sending a check.
She made a book which was about her writing, her life, and of course her book. She included many English’s that are used till this day in different immigrant households and how some people can understand their type of English and others don’t. Amy Tan describes how growing up her mother’s limited English limited her perception of her. She would sometimes feel ashamed of her English because it reflected upon others in restaurants, banks, or department stores. In Mother Tongue Amy made a great point when she spoke about how when she was fifteen years old her mother would have her call people on the phone and pretend it was her in order to ask and receive the correct information she needed.
I can say that it is very uncommon to find two people that speak the exact same English because there are so many different forms of the language and same thing with Spanish. This is the argument that Amy Tan makes in her story, and the one I am really agree with. In “Mother Tongue”, Tan discusses the many ways in which the language that she was taught affected her life. Throughout the story, she describes her relationship with her mother, who speaks “broken” English, and how her perception of language has changed due to her mother. Whenever Tan was younger, she was always ashamed and embarrassed of the way her mother spoke because it would often sound weird and many people not familiar with her way of speaking found it very difficult to understand her.
I thought it was amazing how unfamiliar she was with cultures outside her own. Ms. Kim states on p. 62, “The first English word I learned at the junior high near Queens Boulevard was F.O.B., short for fresh off the boat.” My first thought was how cruel, but a true reflection of America in Queens. Ms. Kim was used to a sheltered, reserved life. She makes reference to this in this essay where she speaks of having a governess and maids to answer her beck and call. Ms. Kim was not accustomed to hearing children label as she was accustomed to being around her people of her status.
ENGLISH STRUGGLES AND ILINGUISTIC IDENTITY Amy Tan, a Chinese-American writer most known for her book “The joy luck club”, who one wouldn’t think would become a writer based on her background. In her article, “Mother Tongue”, she writes about the countless times she had to learn from, cover for, and defend her mother’s interpretation on the English language. One might call it broken English, typical of a Chinese immigrant, but Tan didn’t view it that way, she viewed it as perfect English that she could understand perfectly. Others certainly didn’t understand it all the time and that’s where some of the struggles came in her life. Tan’s audience was experts on language was the audience of English speakers.
The bulk of the story explains her experience with different writing styles after her decision to focus everything on English. When Amy had initially started her career as a writer, she had tried her hardest to use a complicated, “overly sophisticated” form of English with lines such as: “That was my mental quandary in its nascent state.” She had never taken the time to think about the possible audience of her stories at this stage in her career. This has caused many lines in the original drafts of her stories to ultimately get scrapped because of the major breakthrough in her career. She had decided to begin writing in a style that would, “make sense” to her mother, using a dialect that would allow her mother to completely interpret and understand her stories. What she didn’t mention was what had caused such a change in her writing.
In her writing career, she has completed a lot of good work, which shows her thought and experiences. Tan considers her relationship with her own mother, concentrating on the different “Englishes” she and her mother use to communicate with each other and with the world. Tan’s mother moves from Shanghai to The United States. She is not good at English. When she communicates with people, they cannot fully understand what she says.
Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” Summary In the essay “Mother Tongue” By Amy Tan she points out that we are often labeled and categorized by the way we speak. Tan notices how we unintentionally tend to use different Englishes when around different types of people. She tells how she was giving a talk, a talk she had already given to half a dozen other groups the only difference this time was her mother was in the audience. This was the first time she became aware that she uses different englishes. Tan explains that language in immigrant families tends to have a greater role in shaping the language of the child, and how it can limit the possibilities available to them.