Tan Mother Tongue

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In Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue”, the author explores the implications the English language imposes on its speakers, in particular those who speak a broken English. Tan asserts her findings by discussing her own mother’s speech and how it compares to not only hers but society's. She recognizes that her speech is different from her mother's and notes how she herself often manipulates the english language depending on the audience she is communicating with. While speaking to a literary-based group she uses “a speech filled with carefully wrought grammatical phrases” and “all the forms of standard English that I had learned in school” (Tan). However, she notes this English varies greatly from the English she speaks with her mother, an english that …show more content…
Towards the end of her essay, Tan states how she wrote her novel, The Joy Luck Club, “using all the Englishes I grew up with” (Tan 122). She utilizes a similar language throughout her essay “Mother Tongue” by avoiding flowery and overbearing language that would distract from her main point. By sticking to a more basic or primal english, Tan demonstrates that important messages do not have to be cluttered with formal english in order to make a coherent point or sound intelligent. Likewise, Tan helps develop her idea by providing example of mistreatment towards her mother. By providing specific examples, the reader is able to relate to the author’s point and picture the situation for themselves. Furthermore, in her use of anecdotes, Tan utilizes the effects of dialogue by directly quoting her mother. For example, in a phone conversation with a stock broker, Tan’s mother states “Why he don't send me check, already two weeks late. So mad he lie to me, losing me money” (Tan 122). Here, the dialogue allows the reader to first hand experience the broken english Tan discusses and find truth in Tan’s claims. Likewise, Tan shows how the English spoken by her mother is in fact not incompressible. In fact, the english is quite easy to understand even though it is not grammatically correct. Through her work,
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