Preview

Amy Tan Mother Tongue Sparknotes

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
297 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Amy Tan Mother Tongue Sparknotes
Summary of Mother Tongue
Mother Tongue, a narrative essay written by Amy Tan, who is an Asian American writer, introduced an array of stories that Tan and her mother experienced and thus highlighted the extent to which culture and language affected both author’s sensory perception of the world in both childhood and adult life progressively. The entire article was example-oriented which implied that Tan structured the essay by utilizing instances, not only from her perceptive but rather the comparisons and similarities between Tan and her mother. Firstly, the author exemplified the discussions with her mother, a woman whose first language is Chinese and was considered to have “broken English”, prompting the idea in which served as a hook to

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    The essay “Mother Tongue” describes a writer who grew up with a mother of Asian origin and the limitations created by her mother’s speech. The author, Amy Tan, defines her mother’s English as “broken” and that it created communication barriers. For example, when Tan’s mother would need to call her boss about work, she would rely on her daughter to make the phone call and use proper english. When Tan decided to go into English in college, it seemed foolish since she was more skilled in math and science. The author also mentions how not everyone’s speech is the same, but that is not a bad thing. Tan decided to start writing fiction, and write a book in a way her mother would comprehend. Though the writing was harshly critiqued, Tan knew she…

    • 227 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In “Mother Tongue” (1990) an essay written by Amy Tan, a Chinese-American author who has written a lot of beautiful novels, Tan argues that all languages have a purpose and value. Tan tells us how every language has a purpose by giving us examples from her own life, specifically, she talks about the way her and her mother talked; her mother wasn’t very fluent in English, but the little English she could speak she could say smart and brilliant things like, “ . Tan uses personal examples in order to make us believe in the importance of language. The people she directs this story to is to people who grew up in English homes from birth to see just because someone doesn’t talk perfect English doesn’t mean they don’t know things, they do have brilliant…

    • 175 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mother Tongue In this passage the author Amy Tan talks about the different ways people speak in America, as an example she uses herself and her mother, she tells us that one time she was giving a speech in front of a large group and she was using all this big words, and phrases like she had learned in school, but all of a sudden she remember her mother was in the audience and she started to think her speech was bad and all her words were wrong because it was an English she never spoke with her mom, because she explains to us that the English her moms speaks is very broken and very bad because of her Chinese roots, as an example she gives us a paragraph describing a story her mom told her once about a gangster that wanted to join her family, she also tells us that when she was younger she was very ashamed of her mothers broken English, which I think is very funny because I know a lot of people that go threw that problem, and hate going places were their parents have to speak English, luckily for me I didn’t encounter that problem because my mother grew up in Kansa City and learned English at a very young age, so her English has been very good all threw my childhood, the bad part was that since she knew perfect English she was able to communicate with my teachers…

    • 3392 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Amy Tan’s essay “Mother Tongue” Tan grew up in a home with her Chinese mother who spoke English that she considered “broken”. It was difficult for others to understand what her mother was saying. Tan then realized that when she was with her mother that she spoke English differently than she did. She was trying to figure out how her background affected her life, such as her education; but she eventually learned to except her background. At the same time Tan wanted to become a writer and she found that by spending time with her mother who again spoke “broken” English. Even though she was told that writing was her worst skill by her boss, she was determined to make it work.…

    • 197 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mother Tongue, written by Amy Tan, is a short story about her family. Amy’s family is Asian Americans, whom came to America later in their lives, the reason why they do not speak English very well. In her short story, Mother tongue, She emphasizes the idea that we all speak different languages without being consciously aware, and that we are categorized by the way we speak. Amy Tan said that she begin to realize the unusual differences that goes on with language, at least her own, because of the Chinese her mother grew up speaking and the English her mother now uses as her "second language," Amy's uses this version of her mother's English, and uses her own perception that her mother's…

    • 797 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the story “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan her mother was a Chinese immigrant who didn’t speak English correctly. Amy touches upon the subject of language barriers creating societal monsters. Amy Tan’s mother not being able to speak great English consistently…

    • 1197 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Amy Tan’s story “Mother Tongue” starts by the affirmation that she is not a scholar of English or literature. She is just a writer and the person who understand the power of language. From Tan’s observations from her daily life, she realizes that there are different types of English that she uses. The first time Tan notices the difference is when she gives a speech on her book “The Joy Luck Club” using academic English, the one that she never uses to talk with her mother. The second time is when Tan talked using “fractured” English unconsciously with her mother when walking down the street. After that, Tan recalls her memories from her early age: the phone call for her mother to the stockbroker, the meeting with a doctor in the hospital for her mother’s CAT scan result to demonstrate her mother’s realization of “limited” English. Then Tan agrees with the idea that language spoken in…

    • 760 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Mother tongue by Army Tan employs the aspects of simplicity to appeal to the audience. In her introduction, she brings herself to the same level as his audience which makes them attentive and desires to know more. The author uses easily understood English which makes the readers easily relate to what she is saying. The author employs the aspect of the flashback where she tells her audiences about her experience speaking broken English and where this makes today, her viewers curious and to listen more. The author uses rhetoric to appeal to emotion to capture his audiences, in that her being limited to English is because of the influence of her mother this displays the personal experience.…

    • 300 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the article, "Mother Tongue" by author Amy Tan, she uses its context to persuade readers not "Judge someone's intelligence by their English" (Tan, 20) but instead treat others the way you would want to be treated, therefore acceptance is essential because it helps us respect other people who are different than we are, to avoid misconceptions about another person, and to accept others for who they are regardless different ethnical backgrounds.…

    • 575 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    "Mother Tongue" written by Amy Tan, the author reveals that there's bias in spoken and written language when communicating. The speaker herself says she uses different Englishes when speaking to her Chinese immigrant mother whose second language is under developed compared to hers. Ms. Tan alternates between different events that support a change in her own awareness involving forms of English, such as when speaking to a group about her herself, she notices herself saying, '"The intersection of memory upon imagination" and "There is an aspect of my fiction that relates to..."' while confessing that this is not her daily language when conversing with her mother or husband, that it’s a language of intimacy, which I believe is to be more vulnerable…

    • 226 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Amy Tan, author of “Mother Tongue”, wrote a novella on the difficulties of her mother speaking and writing English; or more simply put, learning the correct rhetoric. Throughout the story, she ridicules her mother for her lack of ability to better express her thoughts in the 2nd hardest language on the Earth but seems to do it in the most loving way possible. Well, she tried to the best extent she could. Given the context of the situation Amy isn’t a horrible person or hatful towards her mother, her attitude is just…complex. She begins in paragraph seven with an emotional line of sentences: “But to me, my mother’s English is perfectly clear, perfectly natural.…

    • 474 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Compare and Contrast

    • 944 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Tan portrays her experiences as a child of Chinese parents growing up in an American culture. She constructs a view showing the reader the vast differences between language at home and language in public. She explains some of these languages through instances with her own mother. Tan often explains her mother’s English as “broken” or “fractured” and is often feels embarrassed by this because she feels it shows lack of…

    • 944 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    My response is on “Mother Tongue” which is the story of Amy Tan’s successful mother and her struggles with societies views on different dialects of English. The main idea of this story is that society may take a somewhat offensive stance on accents and dialects and assume many things. I agree with this idea for the pure fact that, yes people do judge people based on certain things, that is just how animals work. Is it unhealthy to stereotype people? Of course.…

    • 352 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mother Tongue

    • 1199 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Amy Tan is a well known Chinese American writer who is famous for her major work, The Joy luck club. She usually writes about the mother and daughter relationship. The essay “Mother Tongue” was originally published in The Threepenny Review in 1990 and also included in The Best American Short Stories 1991, edited by Joyce Carol Oates. In this essay, Tan is likely to reach out to immigrant families that went through similar hardships on communication that she and her mother experienced.…

    • 1199 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    mother tongue

    • 317 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Citation: Amy Tan, “Mother Tongue”, The Norton Sampler, Ed. Thomas Cooley, New York, London, W. W. Norton & Company, 2013 by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 253-261, Print.…

    • 317 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays