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.
I think that her mother has been labeled or stereotyped. Also I believe that stereotyping is wrong. For instance, when Tan states, “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”. Amy Tan speaks in a “variation of languages like academic, a language she does not use at home, but uses when conversing with others outside her family or in her books”. Tan also uses“different English with her family (mother /husband) that she grew up with”.
In describing Mathilde's callous self-centeredness in preparing for the party to which she and her husband were invited, as well as her reaction to losing what she thought was an expensive necklace she borrowed, de Maupassant incorporates a tragic irony that makes this story a timeless classic. An author writes to convey an idea, to drive home a point, and the voice his or her beliefs. Like art and music, writing is a form of expression that can move the readers, persuade them, affect them, and change them. Guy de Maupassant uses "The Necklace" as a literary dagger. Its sharp message is cutting, caustic and tragic.
Being born in China but living in America, she seems ashamed of her roots and that is why she is embarrassed when her mother speaks broken English (Tan 142-146). But, although she tries hard to be American speaking and writing good English, she realizes that she has deviated from her true self. She finally makes peace with her mother and she starts appreciating her “Mother Tongue”, which consequently affects her writing positively. This shows just how peoples’ native languages are important in their lives. Our “Mother Tongue” is what gives us identity; it defines who we are, and therefore, people should value their native languages.
An In-Deep Understanding of “Mother Tongue” In the essay “Mother Tongue”, Amy Tan accomplishes in three things simultaneously: she appeals the audiences emotionally by providing the pictures of the experiences between her mother and her; she shows the struggle of cultural racism that her mother and she go through without pointing out directly; and she puts some odd things into the essay and make it expressive. Amy Tan’s essay is very successful because she writes in her personal and “easy to read” style. Without the special English she uses in her writing, we may not easily understand and accept her ideas. Tan writes about that she has grown up with using different kinds of English: the English she learned in school and she uses in public, and the English she uses in speaking with her mother, which is described as the “broken” English. Moreover it comes to her sense that language is not only a communication tool but also an essential thing in enabling individuals to define their identities.
In the essay, “Mother Tongue,” by Amy Tan emphasizes the idea that we all speak different languages unconsciously and also we are categorized by the way we speck. In the essay Tan observes experiences that made her realized the different types of “Englishes” she uses. The first time she became aware 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 talking with her mother and husband, she said “not waste money that way” which for her is an intimate language used only by her family. Tan emphasizes that fact that her mother recognizes her opportunities and interaction in life are limited by her English.
She backs up this statement with an example, “My mother has long realized the limitations of her English as well. When I was fifteen, she used to have me call people on the phone to pretend I was she. In this guise, I was forced to ask for information or even to complain and yell at people who had been rude to her.” (180). This was followed by an example Tan mentioned about how she had to call her mother’s stock broker to tell him that he must send her, her money back that day or else they would travel to
In the auto-biographical novel "Red Scarf Girl" by Ji-li Jiang, the protagonist Ji-li, greatly influences her own little world. Because of Ji-li’s actions, her family’s life is changed drastically. Ji-li was taught to put her country above her family. Throughout the story Ji-li's feelings about Mao Zedong continue to evolve. In the beginning she is very pro-revolutionary, but as time passes she realizes that Chairman Mao’s policies are not always correct.
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. The first of the differences was experiences in family life. Each of the writers had very different experiences when it comes to family. Amy Tan had a term she explained as “different English” where Richard Rodriguez had a term he explained as “family quietness”. The difference in the two is that although Amy’s mother did have a hard time speaking the language clearer that the average English speaker she was able to have a language with her family that was English but they had a certain bond with it.
Valenti provides many statistics of abuse against women here in the United States as well as examples of evidence for the mistreatment of women. Valenti's appeals began before she had written a single word, mainly due to her being a woman. She appeals to the emotional side of her readers, writing that we “cry with Oprah and laugh with Tina Fey”, that we are “fooling ourselves” into believing that a “mirage of equality...is the real thing." She is trying to explain that it is a sort of ignorance-is-bliss situation: look at all these successful women on television so how could equality not exist? She also cites facts, while maintaining an emotion, by mentioning George Sodini, who specifically targeted women in his shooting “killing three women and injuring nine others."