Nominated for the National Book Award, the National Book
Critics Circle Award, and the International Orange Prize, and has
won many awards including the Commonwealth Gold Award. Amy
Tan, she writes personal essay, in which she combines her
experience on the topic with details from her own life. Mother tongue,
it was published in the Threepenny Review in 1990. The argument in
“Mother Tongue” that she became a better writer when she uses
both the types of English, she writes books for her mother could
understand. Tan grew up speaking the improper way of speaking
English and she learned at school that the English her mother used
was not proper English. Tan uses points from her personal life and
from her work to show that there is no need to separate one’s
language and identity.
Does speaking improper English makes you any less smart?
Tan shows that you not knowing the correct way to speak a
language doesn’t make you any less smart. Tan wants to capture
what language ability test could never reveal, her mom passion, the
nature of her thoughts and her rhythm of speech. She shows that in
the story by showing how her moms speaks. So she is trying to
persuade people so respect people who struggle with English.
Tan’s essay, “Mother Tongue,” is to show how challenging it
can be raised by an immigrant parents who speaks improper
English. As Tan’s mother does, because it can result in people being
judged poorly by others of how much they know on how to speak the
language. Her mother was an important part of her childhood, and
she has a strong influence over Tan’s writing style. At first she
believed that her mom incorrect way of speaking could affect her
grades and her IQ. Her mother English belies on how much she
actually under stands, but the English she spoke was “broken” and
Many people not familiar with her way of speaking found it very
difficult to understand her. As a result of this, Tan would have to
pretend to be her mother, and she called people up to yell at them
while her mother stood behind her and prompted her.
This caused Tan to be ashamed of her mother throughout her child
hood but as she grew, she realized that the language she shares
with her mother is a connection and a bond between them.
Tan uses word in her essay to show the reader of her mother
troubles mastering of the English language. So Tan’s mother tone is
angry, insulting, defensive and other emotions that relates with those
word. Using this help shape the mother emotion, and tone. For
people who are interested to know about Amy Tan, she writes to
make you understand how she feels to be in her shoes or could see
from her point of view and relate to Tan if they were in the same type
of situation as her