“Mother tongue” by Amy Tan Rhetorical analysis essay
No one is entirely certain what defines a language, but who decides what is the proper and improper usage of a language? If there is one thing about language on which we can all agree, it is that it is a tool for communication rather than a means of degrading you, causing you to feel anxious, or placing restrictions on particular facets of your life. It does not demonstrate how intelligent you are; rather, it is meant to communicate thoughts, feelings, and ideas from one person to another. If we can use it properly, encouraging one another to live their lives as they please and not feeling ashamed of the way we speak, it is a really critical weapon. The manner we talk in as well as our accents is a representation of our culture, and who we are. People who reside in multicultural cities like New York City are aware of the difficulties involved in learning a new language. mainly because we, or someone we know, has walked in that shoes before or is presently doing so. Once they master the basics of a language, they continue to face criticism from people who were born and raised here. It’s simple to become disoriented and feel trapped between two identities in the midst of all this. In order to avoid these, we should accept and respect all forms of any language equally. The way we phrase things is not a determination of how smart or stupid we are, and language should not be the reason we miss out on many opportunities or feel embarrassed in a group of people.
Amy Ruth Tan is a well-known Chinese American writer who was raised in California and attended the University of California, Berkeley and San Jose State University to study English and linguistics. Her novels, short stories, and essays are about Chinese American women, Chinese culture, and immigrant life because she was raised by Chinese immigrant parents. She is best known as the author of “The Joy Luck Club”, “The Kitchen God’s Wife,” and other works, most of which were New York Times bestsellers and had several award nominations. She wrote “Mother tongue,” one of her well-known essays, in 1990. In her essay, she addresses the importance of language and how the various dialects of a single language and your background may limit you. She compares the English she uses outside of the house and when she’s at home, which made her feel like she was stuck between two different worlds. She also provides examples of how her mother uses language at a hospital, on multiple phone calls that made her feel like her form of English was not good enough to back up her claim. She writes to abolish the absurd notion that you must speak a specific variety of English to be accepted and regarded as smart. The target audience for Tan’s essay is those who experience limitations and insecurity as a result of their language and cultural upbringing. Moreover, to encourage them to be proud of their language and culture, which helped them shape their worldview. Amy Tan uses a variety of personal experiences from her life in her essay to evoke certain feelings and emotionally persuade her audience that we should accept all languages as equals because they are. And that your way of speaking, even though its different than others does not mean its incorrect or doesn’t hold the same value.
Tan successfully demonstrates to the audience that using different dialects of English places restrictions on people by using the rhetorical device of pathos. Pathos appeals to the emotions, trying to make the audience feel angry or sympathetic, etc. She makes use of her mother’s hospital experience, “Still, she said, the hospital did not apologize when they said they had lost the CAT scan which she’s been waiting anxiously since her son and her husband both had died from brain tumor. She resisted leaving the hospital until they called her daughter who speaks “perfect” English (Tan 2). Use of this example is very strategic because it shows that her mother’s “broken” English could have led to her death. If she did not have her daughter to call and explain her mother’s situation, she would not be able to receive the treatment, and therefore would be sick or dead just like her son and husband. Tan contrasts the two versions of English they used to request the same CAT results. In contrast, her daughter’s “perfect” English gained them the assurance that the Cat scan would be found, a meeting would be held, and an apology for any inconvenience that may have occurred. Her mother’s “broken” English, on the other hand, did not receive an apology, let alone an explanation for her missing results. “Tan is Asking the audience, subtly, “Does using different English words to describe the same idea make you less important?” As a result, the audience empathizes with her mother and also becomes angry at our society for labeling and classifying people based on their language. By reading this essay, readers/audience, particularly those who do not speak “standard” English, will be easily able to put themselves in the mother’s shoes or recall similar incidents that have occurred to them, invoking deeper emotions. She proves her claim that your family language should be embraced by showing how her perception of the world was shaped by the language that was used at home. “… I later decided I should envision a reader for the stories I would write. And the reader I decided upon was my mother…” (Tan 4). She is trying to persuade her audience that speaking a complex language that few people can understand does not confer superior intelligence or privilege. By informing her readers that she chose to write in her mother tongue and that doing so has helped her become a successful author she exhorts and implores her listeners to adopt their own tongue. To not let their lack of phrases, hinder knowledge, opportunity and experience. Their mother tongue, the one that played a role in the formation of their self, and perspective in life.
Tan also effectively establishes her credibility by utilizing the rhetorical tool known as ethos. Ethos appeals to the speaker’s status or authority, making the audience more likely to trust them. She is open and honest with her audience about how she perceives various Englishes and how she learns to appreciate them throughout the course of her essay. She starts off her essay saying, “I am not a scholar of English or literature. I cannot give you much more than personal opinions on the English language and its variations in this country or others”. She makes it clear to her audience that she is only giving her opinion on the English language based on what she has learned, encountered, and observed over the years, and that just because she is a writer does not imply that her perspective is more relevant than anybody else’s. People are drawn to compassionate and humble people, so by denying her status as an authority figure right away, she builds a personal bond with her audience. The audience sees that she is just sharing her experience with many of her friends throughout the world who have experienced similar situations while also acknowledging/highlighting their challenges thanks to the accessible and casual tone she uses in her essay. She talks about how she was ashamed of her mother’s English, she says “I know this for a fact, because when I was growing up, my mother’s “limited” English limited my perception of her. I was ashamed of her English. I believed that her English reflected the quality of what she had to say. That is, because she expressed them imperfectly, her thoughts were imperfect.” (Tan 2). She openly admits to her audience that she was embarrassed by her mother’s “poor English” and that she thought her mother was uneducated as a result. It’s clear that a lot of people have been conditioned to believe that if your English differs from theirs or doesn’t sound right, you must not be very intelligent. or that your English is defective? Who determines what constitutes proper English, and what constitutes broken English? Amy Tan was one of them until she realized how much her mother tongue had influenced how she had developed in ways that she cannot even begin to describe. Tan instantly gains your trust whether you are from an immigrant household, have experience speaking for your family, or have ever felt self-conscious about your English. Considering that you have experienced this. But she also opens the floor for those who have not experienced embarrassment but made others embarrassed of their language, to self- reflect.
In the final analysis, one’s proficiency in a language does not mean one is intelligent or vice versa. If that were the case, everyone in the world would be a perfect communicator of their native tongue, and we could refer to them as a “collection of brilliant minds.” But for many years, instead of praising us, the way we speak a second language has been misused as a means of degrading us. People are eager to point at you, make fun of you, etc. just by the way we speak. Since English is not my first language, I have personally run into this circumstance quite a bit. At times, I avoided crowds just because doing so would have required me to talk and draw strange looks from everyone. It is like an endless cycle. Who made the decision that our communication style is ineffective or a sign of our intelligence? What advantage do they have over us, or how could someone who has never been in our shoes ever begin to understand the struggles? As long as our speech is understandable, how we speak shouldn’t matter. Nobody has the right to dictate to another person how to speak or to treat them differently based on the language they use.
Work Cited
Mother Tongue, by Amy Tan – University of Missouri–St. Louis. https://umsl.edu/~alexanderjm/Mother%20Tongue%20by%20Tan.pdf.
