Communication What?
Sean Young
English 101
Professor Zednik
September 18, 2012
Communication What?
Tannen, Munoz, and Tan wrote personal essays explaining the impact of language in their lives. Problems arising from lack of communication are happening now more than ever, and these three authors state three completely different ways about how language is affecting their own lives as well as others. Though the three authors come from different backgrounds and share different stories, all the problems written by these authors can be traced back to a simple lack of communication. All of communication errors discussed prove to be unfair to one side or the other.
Without inspiration, any type of art would just be nothing but a small showing of skill without its individual story. Amy Tan once said, "The goal of every serious writer of literature is to try to find your voice and your art because it comes from your own experiences, your own pain." Amy Tan herself writes all of her work with her mother in mind as the reader. Her mother is her inspiration. In "Mother Tongue," Amy Tan talk about all of the Englishes she was raised with. These include normal English and her "mother tongue" English, the way she spoke to her family, which shaped her first outlook of life. Along the essay, Tan sends a strong message of how we ought to view people by their individual and beautiful side, not by their shortcomings. A quote in Munoz’ story that relates is, “ Spanish was and still is viewed with suspicion: Always the language of the vilified illegal immigrant, it segregated schoolchildren into English-only and bilingual programs; it defined you, above all else, as part of a lower class.”(72) It is sad that in our society today things like this happen, that we still judge people by their skin color or the language they speak, or even by their name. This relates back into Amy Tans’ story also, on how certain people are denied some rights because their language is not up to our standards. For example,
English 101
Professor Zednik
September 18, 2012
Communication What?
Tannen, Munoz, and Tan wrote personal essays explaining the impact of language in their lives. Problems arising from lack of communication are happening now more than ever, and these three authors state three completely different ways about how language is affecting their own lives as well as others. Though the three authors come from different backgrounds and share different stories, all the problems written by these authors can be traced back to a simple lack of communication. All of communication errors discussed prove to be unfair to one side or the other.
Without inspiration, any type of art would just be nothing but a small showing of skill without its individual story. Amy Tan once said, "The goal of every serious writer of literature is to try to find your voice and your art because it comes from your own experiences, your own pain." Amy Tan herself writes all of her work with her mother in mind as the reader. Her mother is her inspiration. In "Mother Tongue," Amy Tan talk about all of the Englishes she was raised with. These include normal English and her "mother tongue" English, the way she spoke to her family, which shaped her first outlook of life. Along the essay, Tan sends a strong message of how we ought to view people by their individual and beautiful side, not by their shortcomings. A quote in Munoz’ story that relates is, “ Spanish was and still is viewed with suspicion: Always the language of the vilified illegal immigrant, it segregated schoolchildren into English-only and bilingual programs; it defined you, above all else, as part of a lower class.”(72) It is sad that in our society today things like this happen, that we still judge people by their skin color or the language they speak, or even by their name. This relates back into Amy Tans’ story also, on how certain people are denied some rights because their language is not up to our standards. For example,