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Mother Tongue: Chapter Analysis

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Mother Tongue: Chapter Analysis
Ms.Nancy&Ms.Scanlon
FIQWS
CHUXIN ZHENG
09/16/14
Annotated Bibliography

Emerson, R.W. (2009, September 9). Chapter IV: language. from Nature; Addresses and Lectures. Retrieved September 15, 2014, from http://www.emersoncentral.com/language.htm In this chapter, author discusses the relationship between language and the nature. Word implies the objects in nature and word and nature represent spiritual realities. Then author explain how the word implies natural and illustrate words are derived from natural. Nature is similar to word, they both had made connection with human. Emerson also tries to make reader to understand how nature assumes spiritual dimensions by using language.Actually, this chapter …show more content…
This sort of English is not acceptable for the mainstream society. For Tan, it also influenced her writing because her mother’s broken English became a resource of her literary creation. Tan started to write by using the familial English which her mother is able to understand even though most people can’t understand this kind of composition. For Tan, she was satisfied that her mother could understand it and she will protect the essential of their own language.“Mother Tongue” is a very personal; this essay represents that how the environment and parent’s education affect the writing. Author describes how her mother’s broken English by using many examples, make reader more understand about what is her feeling. Moreover, Tan also has described how her thought changes in detail and clarified the reasons of her …show more content…
In this chapter, Anderson tries to estimate the number of language that exists in this world by using geographical and other methods. For example, in European, the diversity of language is so impressive. Indo-European languages are accounted for a large ratio of languages. There have been certain proto-Indo European languages divided into other new languages, thus support the point of complexity of languages. Even though there are a lot of languages out in the world, some language are being died out. The author also tries to estimate by calculating how many people speak the language. Using population is an effective approach to estimate how many languages there are in the world. In the end of this chapter, the author emphasize that the diversity of languages are gradually extinct. In my opinion, I believe we should attach importance to language extinction. Even though there are a lot of languages in the world, we should still attach importance to the one that is being wiped out. At this rate, it is likely that the diversity of language will be fewer; language will become more and more uniform. For me, it’s definitely grievous phenomenon. Language is a part of a culture and traditional signal for
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