Summary for Amy Tan's Mother Tongue - Essay Example

People use English as part of a particular community, but it is integral in allowing people to create a profound identity and define their state in society. Even though she has a great love for English, she has never thought about this ideology until noticing that she never appeared eloquent in her mother’s absence. She is conscious of the type of dialect that she regularly utilizes in usual circumstances and during intimacy when realizing that her better half did not have even have the slightest reaction when she mentioned words wrongly or used the wrong phrases.

She knew the reason behind these unnoticed errors. After years of living with her husband and conversing in the same language, which consisted of broken English, they got used to it and rarely noticed the grammatical errors. She also saw another dialect in the household setting, the language of intimacy, the familial English. Demonstration of Family Talk Mrs. Tan decided to demonstrate this family language or talk by using a good story from her mother. The story is excellent, but the most important thing to pick from it is her mother’s language.

All the quoted sections had numerous language grammatical errors, and the entire writing was jumbled up. Even though the story showed her mother’s command of English was poor, that was not the case. She is very conversant with English. Her mother could peruse and, in great detail, high-level documents without any problems whatsoever, which was very common with other mothers in the same situation. On the other hand, some of Tan’s friends thought that her mother’s English was not as excellent as they could only comprehend half of what she was speaking.

However, the writer expresses her mother’s English as well-polished, graphical, and very comprehensive. Regardless of how appreciative she was of her mother tongue as a tool that allowed her to explore the entire world, she noticed that it was “broken English.” And she was not content calling it imperfect as there was hardly a way of fixing it to the ideal correctness. She is also no comfortable with the ideology of “limited English.”  Tan also thinks that her mother’s imperfect English gives her the notion that she is defective.

Not many people took Tan’s mother seriously because they never understood what she was talking about. And if they understood, it was hard hearing and picking the words from her language. It was common with other mothers as well. Tan’s mother was vigilant about her limitation of English. Therefore, she used to have Tan answer all phone calls. In turn, this resulted in a troublesome scenario where Tan was forced to raise her voice or act up to other individuals. A great example is when her mother was at the hospital angry at the hospital personnel for not giving her a direct apology for losing her cat.

Tan was forced to interfere in the situation and help her mom with the scenario. She came to be a translator, giving her the necessary help of perfectly expressing herself. Tan Blaming Her Mother’s Poor English for Limited Possibilities Although it is not apparent but possible, Tan’s mother limited knowledge was one of the causes that confined her to achieving most things in her life. Tan had her reasons for believing in this ideology. First, she was convinced that it was the main reason for her mother not having proper verbal communication skills as well as poor results in achievement tests.

Even worse, since it is an evolving language and her mother’s English skills were very poor, it worsened over time as she couldn’t see the “science” behind an English inquiry. She had a limited view that was heavily affected by her broken language. This factor had a massive influence on Tan and other individuals that grew up in the same situation as Tan, a poor speaking environment. That is probably the main reason you will find many Asian-Americans in physical sciences lessons and classes rather than in literature or social sciences.

Tan began composing fiction using her ordinary and well-polished Queen’s language in 1985; however, she decided to alter this approach and compose something that mothers in the same situation as her mother could comprehend. It was a book for people using the same words that she grew up listening to from her mother, the broken mother tongue that she learned to speak the Queen’s language with. One of the most exciting things about this broken Queen’s language is that it is a verbatim translation from the Chinese and a fascinating language.

Tan’s capability of allowing people with such poor Queen’s language to read books that have been purposefully created for them is a fantastic initiative. Through her literature, she managed to preserve things that will never be captured by any other langue test ever. Although many people would criticize this move, Amy came to realize that she has managed to create something that her mom and other mothers like her can read. A book in “broken Queen’s language” in response to what she experienced while she was small.

She came to realize that she won the reader’s hearts, who are many mothers in the same situation as it was an easy read for her mom.