101 Mrs. Rabe September 5‚ 2012 Mother Tongue “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan is an essay discussing how English-speakers inaccurately associate language with not only words/vocabulary but also educational stature. “ ‘Mother Tongue’ shows us that rather than becoming accustomed to English‚ we should recognize and embrace our ‘mother tongue.’ The language we use is so powerful it can evoke an emotion‚ a visual image‚ a complex idea‚ or simple truth.” Amy Tan indicated that complex vocabulary does
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From Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue”‚ it is evident that language has an effect on our lives. Language defines the type of person I am generally and it has had an effect on my choices as well as my lifestyle. Language has become my way of seeing life in a different perspective. In “Mother Tongue‚” Amy Tan discusses the many ways in which the language that she was taught affected her life. I can definitely relate to Tan’s essay because I too come from a bilingual home. Like Amy Tan‚ I have intelligent immigrant
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forms of the language. This is the argument that Amy Tan makes in her story‚ “Mother Tongue”. Tan uses pathos to portray to her audience how through her experiences with her mother and the Chinese language she came to realize who she wanted to be and how she wanted to write. In “Mother Tongue”‚ Tan discusses the many ways in which the language that she was taught affected her life. Throughout the story‚ she describes her relationship with her mother‚ who speaks “broken” English‚ and how her perception
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Essay Writing Amy Tan’s beautifully written novel outlines what it is to be an immigrant in America and a daughter‚ woman‚ wife‚ lover‚ sister and friend. The novel shows four different stories each from different women that were born in China but forced to leave due to tragic occurrences‚ and their four daughters who were all born on the other side of the world‚ America. The novel explores one of the themes‚ the cultural divide between the two generations of women and their daughters and how
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“Aria” by Richard Rodriguez and “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan both authors write about their experiences and struggles as a bilingual child. In “Aria” and “Mother Tongue” they describe their private language as an expression of intimacy with their loved ones. Growing up at one point they felt embarrassed and ashamed of their parents inability to speak English fluently. Tan writes “My mother’s “limited” English limited my perception of her. I was ashamed of her English‚” (Tan 543). They were their parents’
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Mother Tongue Summery In the essay‚ “Mother Tongue” Amy Tan talks about her life growing up in a bilingual household. In the begging Amy Tan talks about how much she has always loved language and the different “Englishes” she grew up with. She goes on to talk about her experience with having a mother who spoke “broken” English by giving examples of having to pretend to be her mother over the phone to stock brokers. The author explains that in the begging she felt that her mother’s limited English
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Discovering New Perspectives and Heritage: “A Pair of Tickets” Amy Tan’s “A Pair of Tickets‚” is a story about a young woman who was born in California‚ named Jing-Mei‚ who travels to China three months after her mother’s death‚ in hopes of finding her long-lost twin sisters. Along her voyage‚ she finds her Chinese heritage and overcomes the sorrow she felt for her late mother. In her story “A Pair of Tickets‚” Amy Tan uses setting‚ point of view‚ and symbol to illustrate the narrator’s journey to
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In the essay “Mother Tongue”‚ the author Amy Tan presents the process that she turned the negative impact of her mother’s “limited” English to the positive influence of her writing style. First‚ Tan introduces herself and her writing. She is a writer who uses all kinds of English that she is familiar with in her writing. Furthermore‚ she mentions that she realizes lately that the way she talks with her family is different from the way she communicates with others. Tan goes on to write about
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Amy Tan writes as many hidden things as the number of her story in Two Kinds. As its complex structure suggests‚ the book tries to organize the the stories of mother and daughter with the intention of reaching the same destination: the daughter’s recovery of her cultural and ethnic identity as Chinese by overcoming the generational gap and the cultural differences between herself and her mother. The mother intend to hand over their "good intentions" and "usable past" in China to their daughter in
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Amy Tan writes‚ in this essay‚ about the language that she and her mother used in their family while Tan was growing up. She makes a great effort to explain that their language‚ English‚ was never "broken" or "simple" as most people would say about it. Although she could speak perfect English‚ her mother could not. But‚ she grew up with her mother’s English way of speaking‚ and therefore learned to consider it as a natural language. She is trying to make a point here by saying that there is absolutely
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