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.
At an early age she started to realize that the English had taken over her culture. Kincaid conveys her resentment toward England in her essay through tone, anaphora, and figurative language. Tone is a writer’s or speaker’s attitude toward a subject, character, or audience. In Kincaid’s essay “On Seeing England for the First Time”, the tone is one of sarcasm. When Kincaid views the map of England presented to the class by the teacher, she makes a sarcastic comment, “at the time I saw this map - seeing England for the first time - I did not say to myself “Ah, so that’s what it looks like.” Her teacher views the map with awe.
Novelist Amy Tan (Libi Pedder / Camera Press / Retna) Tan proves her point about parents’ influence on people’s life when she states “I think my mother’s English almost had an effect on limiting my possibilities in life as well”. By talking about how her mother’s English lacked a certain wholeness and clarity, she explains why her thoughts about her mother tongue were different when she was a child; “I believed that her English reflected the quality of what she had to say.” People in department stores, at banks, and at restaurants didn’t take her mother seriously, didn’t give her good service, pretended not to understand her, or even acted as if they didn’t hear her. Here Tan emphasizes the importance of mother tongue in somebody’s life. She believes that people may not be treated respectfully because of their poor speaking of any language. She never reflects on her mother’s difficulties as something that could’ve motivated her to become a writer.
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.
In return she has to do Charlese homework and Charlese’s sister Juju has to give Maleeka some cloths to wear so she doesn’t have to wear her mothers clothing. However throughout the book Maleeka starts to grow resentful to Charlese abusive behavior towards her and the other students. Miss Saunders, a new
She saw it as “broken”, “fractured” or “limited” English. “I was ashamed of her English.” she said. However, what she considered as “broken” English began revealing its own charm for the other thing. In other words, the author started to look at her mother’s English with different perspective. She had this feeling that behind her mother’s imperfect English resides a wonderful expression of beauty, a beauty she wondered at.
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
n the article “Mother Tongue”, Amy tan emphasizes the idea that we all speak different languages unconsciously and that we are categorized by the way we speak. The author is a fictional writer who is “fascinated by language in daily life” and uses language as a daily part of her work as a writer. In paragraphs 2 and 3 she observes experiences that made her realized the different types of "Englishes" she uses. The first time she became aware of this was when giving a talk about her book, The Joy Club, she saw her mother in the audience and she realized that she had been using academic language learned from books, a language she had never used with her mother. 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.
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.
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.