Mother Tongue by Amy Tan - Essay Example

English 9 May Argument Analysis of ‘Mother Tongue’ by Amy Tan Mother tongue ed by Amy Tan reflects her personal rumination and assessment concerning “broken English” as opposed to Standard English. In her perspective, language “authorizes” people to become members of a specific society. Additionally, language is imperative for establishing and delineating the dimensions of one’s character. These thoughts never occurred to the authoress until she realised how she never spoke eloquently or rhetorically with her mother. Thereafter, she observed how her husband also overlooked her grammatically incorrect phrases due to their long matrimonial bond (Dong). This directed her attention towards the usage of a distinct language, the familial English. Given the portrayal of language skills by Tan, one cannot help but agree with the authoress. The bonds associated with language and the resulting personalised recognition is all too common in everyone’s life. One major issue faced by immigrant families is that it may not be possible for all members of the family to speak flawless English as indicated in the essay by Tan. In order to shed light on this concept, she quotes a story narrated by her mother. The story itself was trivial but the noteworthy point was her mother’s grammatical errors. The content was quite hard to decipher due to those grammatical mistakes; however, the authoress asserts that her mother apparently had an excellent grip over English. As a child, her mother’s “broken” English mortified Tan. She considered that imperfection of speech, actually depicted imperfection of thoughts. On the other hand, her mother encouraged her to think distinctively. Years later, she appreciates the essence of unique thinking and academically studies English. It was at this point in time that she recognized the meaningfulness and worth of being able to use various types of English Language; and started appreciating her mother’s potential. Their broken English symbolises a language of intimacy between them, where they can speak anything grammatically wrong to covey something special. This newfound love and knowledge compelled her to write about her mother, “I wanted to capture what language ability tests can never reveal: her intent, her passion, her imager, the rhythms of her speech, and the nature of her thoughts”. Tan was so inspired from her mother’s heritage that she resolved that her mother should be the first reader and critic. She states at the end, “I knew I had succeeded where it counted when my mother finished reading my book and gave me her verdict: so easy to read”. All of us undergo similar experiences, carrying hidden treasures within us and sometimes being away or detached from our roots enables us to appreciate the true worth of those treasures. Tans fundamental purpose in writing is to produce texts, which are comprehendible for a ‘common man’ like her mother. I was touched and captivated by the true to life context of Tan’s work. It is primarily directed at immigrant families and students who use English as a second language for studying and the like. However, for the authoress her mother is the most imperative target. She appears to have contemplated extensively on the power and role of language and expresses her perspective through this essay. She maintains that the importance of a language does not lie in its being broken or perfect. She emphasizes familial languages should be protected, preserved. English enabled her to gain knowledge, recognize the world around her; hence, she considered it her mother tongue. The tone of the authoress is sentimental as the essay revolves around her personal experiences. Thereby, several statements and reviews based on her past are illustrated as she writes in the start, “I cannot give you much more than personal opinions”. It appears that the authoress has an additional objective, to express gratitude. From the essay, we get the impression that her mother was primarily responsible for encouraging a different opinion of language, which later influenced her writing style. She wants to convey that words are actually more than words; and at times, you need to look behind and read between the lines to grasp the real meaning. For instance, she disregards her mother’s imperfect English and accentuates that it is the notions and points that her mother conveyed, which really matter (Dietsch). She sheds light over the power of language; how it induces sentiments, establishes mental pictures, and enables communication. She includes personal instances to elucidate the influence and role of speech in how others perceive and respond to us. This is an undeniable fact that people see the world not as it is but how they perceive it to be. Generally, we measure the intellect of a person keeping in mind the choice of their words and way they expressed their thoughts, the purpose behind the words is given secondary importance. It is natural for most of us to let bias, racism, and social segregation affect our point of view and attitude towards others. She also addresses the issue of individualist culture as opposed to collective culture. Since America is fundamentally an individualist society, so it is particularly challenging yet imperative for immigrants to merge in the native culture. Again, the underlying truth makes this argument credible and true. Richard Rodriguez communicates similar ideas in his book ‘Achievement of desire’, whereby immigrant children believe that their parents were oppressed due to language barriers. Throughout the essay, we see numerous examples of ad hominem whereby truth is negated by pointing towards an unfavourable element. For instance, Tan is of the opinion that personal intelligence cannot be determined through standard tests. She emphasises that people think differently and possess dissimilar intelligence levels. The standard test can only compute a particular kind of intelligence so it seems partial and prejudiced. This appears to be a logical fallacy. Similarly, she stresses how people take advantage of her mother because of her broken English. She claims that the words make sense; the words are not broken but different reflecting her discrete kind of Asian thinking. However, in reality sometimes it is quite complex to comprehend foreigners which leads to differential treatment. This should not be confused or mistaken for social or racial bias; it is simply the inability to make sense of broken words, grammatical mistakes, and incomplete sentences. Undoubtedly, Tan is justified in her claims of how language enables an individual to become a member of a culture and assists in structuring and defining an identity. Tan seems a credible writer as her arguments are based on logical reasoning. Moreover, she has portrayed real life scenarios to support her perspective. This realism of content appeals to emotions and makes the essay relatable. Rhetorical strategies based on culture, sorrow and logos need to be kept in mind in order to comprehend the purpose of the authoress. The essay revolves around inductive reasoning since Tan’s reasoning is solely based on personal experiences and observations of how society behaved towards her mother’s broken English. She has used these self-evident facts to create this story to articulate her opinion. The content logically progresses as Tan quotes real life illustrations to advocate her arguments. Evidently, the language is simple to comprehend; the sentences differed from short to long fluent ones. Therefore, the essay is well balanced between rhetoric and logic. To add more variety to her work, she has used numerous schemes and tropes that make Mother Tongue more appealing. Furthermore, she draws on the rhetorical strategy of asyndeton when she quotes, “grammatical phrases, burdened, it suddenly seemed to me, with normalized forms, pas perfect tenses, conditional phrases”. There are no connecting conjunctions but simply commas. Another strategy she employs is that of anaphora, for instance, she writes, “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”. These parts comprise of repeating similar words in the start of sentence or clause and the essay has been written in the first person. In conclusion, Tan brilliantly described society’s opinion of people with dissimilar accents. She superbly portrays how most Americans suppose that information from people with broken English is of lower quality in contrary to people who speak Standard English. Overall, she did extremely well in utilizing rhetorical devices. There was diversity in sentence fluency, the tone was logical, and great thought went into the choice of words. Overall, the essay was practical, full of wit and pointed out many interesting facts. Works Cited Dietsch, Betty Mattix. Reasoning and Writing Well. Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing, 1999. Dong, Lan. Reading Amy Tann. California: Greenwood Reference, 2009. Read More