Mother Tongue
Mother Tongue, by Amy Tan
This is a narrative essay because is telling a story, and it is organized chronologically. It means that is organized in the order that they occur. Amy Tan is a writer that describes her relation with her roots, through the language that she learns which is English. She is sharing her story, how she gets to use the language in the way she is, and how affected her imperfect English of her mother. This essay use pathos appeals that refers to appeals based on emotions. For example, “Some say they understand none of it, as if she were speaking pure Chinese. But to me, my mother's English is perfectly clear, perfectly natural. It's my mother tongue. Her language, as I hear it, is vivid, direct, full of observation and imagery. That was the language that helped shape the way I saw things, expressed things, made sense of the world”. (35)
This essay has many concrete details and examples. For example, “those tests were constructed around items like fill-in-the-blank sentence completion, such as, "Even though Tom was, Mary thought he was --." And the correct answer always seemed to be the most bland combinations of thoughts, for example, "Even though Tom was shy, Mary thought he was charming:' with the grammatical structure "even though" limiting the correct answer to some sort of semantic opposites, so you wouldn't get answers like, "Even though Tom was foolish, Mary thought he was ridiculous:' Well, according to my mother, there were very few limitations as to what Tom could have been and what Mary might have thought of him. So I never did well on tests like that”. (37)
Joyas voladoras
This is a complicated piece of prose. This essay talks about the human heart and the pain of love. Parts of this essay are scientific. For example, “Mammals and birds have hearts with four chambers. Reptiles and turtles have hearts with three chambers. Fish have hearts with two chambers. Insects and mollusks have hearts with one chamber. Worms have hearts with
This is a narrative essay because is telling a story, and it is organized chronologically. It means that is organized in the order that they occur. Amy Tan is a writer that describes her relation with her roots, through the language that she learns which is English. She is sharing her story, how she gets to use the language in the way she is, and how affected her imperfect English of her mother. This essay use pathos appeals that refers to appeals based on emotions. For example, “Some say they understand none of it, as if she were speaking pure Chinese. But to me, my mother's English is perfectly clear, perfectly natural. It's my mother tongue. Her language, as I hear it, is vivid, direct, full of observation and imagery. That was the language that helped shape the way I saw things, expressed things, made sense of the world”. (35)
This essay has many concrete details and examples. For example, “those tests were constructed around items like fill-in-the-blank sentence completion, such as, "Even though Tom was, Mary thought he was --." And the correct answer always seemed to be the most bland combinations of thoughts, for example, "Even though Tom was shy, Mary thought he was charming:' with the grammatical structure "even though" limiting the correct answer to some sort of semantic opposites, so you wouldn't get answers like, "Even though Tom was foolish, Mary thought he was ridiculous:' Well, according to my mother, there were very few limitations as to what Tom could have been and what Mary might have thought of him. So I never did well on tests like that”. (37)
Joyas voladoras
This is a complicated piece of prose. This essay talks about the human heart and the pain of love. Parts of this essay are scientific. For example, “Mammals and birds have hearts with four chambers. Reptiles and turtles have hearts with three chambers. Fish have hearts with two chambers. Insects and mollusks have hearts with one chamber. Worms have hearts with