6. Mother tongue commonly means the language first learned by a person, but for the author, Amy Tan, it has a special meaning. (para. Explain the meaning of Tans title and how it relates to her own identity as both a Chinese American, a daughter, and a writer. But they seem just as bad, as if everything is limited, including people's perceptions of the limited English speaker. In the following sentence, underline each misspelled or misused word and write the correct spelling or word above the incorrect word. And I believe that it affected my results on achievement tests, I.Q. At the CAT scan, Tan's mother wasn't taken seriously due to her not being able to speak fluently. She said they did not seem to have any sympathy when she told them she was anxious to know the exact diagnosis, since her husband and son had both died of brain tumors. If you believe she is guilty of some stereotyping, discuss examples. Explain the meaning of Tans title and how it relates to her own identity as both a Chinese American, a daughter, and a writer. 2. So mad he lie to me, losing me money. Explain why Tan calls herself a rebel in "Mother Tongue" and how this identity led to her becoming a writer. Students are most likely to conclude that Tan and her mother do have a close relationship and should support their opinion with at least three of the following examples: a. She goes from being ashamed of her mothers speakingfeeling that other people will judge her familyto being proud of the rich culture behind her mothers English. /BitsPerComponent 8 When she began to write fiction, she made a conscious decision to write to a specific audience: she decided to write to her mother; as she was writing about relationships between mothers and daughters in her stories. The title of Amy Tans essay is a pun on the expression mother tongue, referring to ones first language. 22 terms. In grade school I did moderately well, getting perhaps B's, sometimes B-pluses, in English and scoring perhaps in the sixtieth or seventieth percentile onachievement tests. "Like others, I have described it to people as "broken" or "fractured" English. 11th Review / Critical Thinking Questions. Latest answer posted March 28, 2020 at 6:52:46 PM. What would be the impact of omitting one of them? Her mother, too, was clearly aware of how her use of the language affected how seriously people took her, for she used to get her daughter to phone people and pretend to be Mrs Tan. Award-winning novelist, short story writer, and essayist. How is Amy Tan's use of the phrase "mother tongue" ambiguous? Even though the focus of the essay is the author's experiences with languages and her mother's influence on her writing, an underlying theme of the essay is the identity of a first-generation American. endobj A good literary analysis might explain these transitions, and how they affect the structure of the piece. Chinese age I was nineteen. Get started for free! It has always bothered me that I can think of no way to describe it other than "broken," as if it were damaged and needed to be fixed, as if it lacked a certain wholeness and soundness. Describe how others (those who do not know her intimately) see Tan's mother versus how Tan describes her in "Mother Tongue." I cannot give you much more than personal opinions on the English language and its variations in this country or others. b. Tan, her husband, and her mother go out together. Although Amy Tan was born in the United States, her writing is shaped to a great degree by the immigrant experience. Tan seems to love and respect her mother despite her language boundaries. The story helps the reader understand Tan's later comments about what to call her mother's English-words like limited or broken affect people's perceptions of her mother and her mother's abilities. -describes how her mom influenced her writing and this is why her mom is the audience. /Type /ExtGState That was the language that helped shape the way I saw things, expressed things, made sense of the world. Stephen Crane Amy Thompson Amy Tan Anne Tan 2. Those tests were constructed around items like fill-in-the-blank sentence completion, such as, "Even though Tom was, Mary thought he was --. Get inspiration from over 500,000 example essays. She began writing fiction in 1985, and after several false starts trying to find her own style and idiom, she began to write with her mother in mind as the ideal reader for her stories. M.A. Her mother's "limited" English limited Tan's perception of her. When I was fifteen, she used to have me call people on the phone to pretend I was she. Then evaluate her message. It is not simply, as she first thought, that one type of English is correct and the other incorrect. defining her mother's tongue and other's interpretations of it (their reactions), -how other's react to her mother's tongue - pretended not to understand her or hear her, did not take her seriously, and did not give her good service. In this guise, I was forced to ask for information or even to complain and yell at people who had been rude to her. -talking to her mom "My mother was in the room", Tan quotes a "terrible line" she once wrote "That was my mental quandary in its nascent state." Start your 48-hour free trial to get access to more than 30,000 additional guides and more than 350,000 Homework Help questions answered by our experts. -other peoples reactions; how it affected Amy (would make calls for her mom) Respect for making big celebration, he shows up. Chinese social life that way. Be sure to consider the anecdotes regarding Tan giving a speech, the stockbroker, the CAT scan, and Tan's experience with the SATs. Tan uses an example of her mother going to New York to yell at her stockbroker, after not receiving her check from cashing out her portfolio, to show us that even though her language skills were sub par, she could still very effectively communicate her feelings and ideas. You can read Mother Tongue here before proceeding to our summary and analysis of Amy Tans essay below. Do you think her idea is valid? w !1AQaq"2B #3Rbr Tan notes the difficulty of finding a term to describe the style of English her mother, as a Chinese immigrant to the United States, speaks. We used a similar routine just five days ago, for a situation that was far less humorous. Tan highlights this dichotomy when she writes about giving her speech, saying the proper English words that she was using felt strange to say when her mother was in the room. Does it drag on too much? 2. Amy sets up this comparison by describing a talk that she gave about a book and had given so many times before that it was entirely familiar to her. WhowasJohnWilkesBooth? This is a key part of Feathers from a Thousand Li Away, and it helps us to understand Tans conflicted attitude towards her mothers use of language as explored in Mother Tongue. She says even her husband started speaking this kind of English together and that it has come to represent intimacy. A scholar would push to discover and learn about their particular subject, while the writer is to take their findings and put them into practice. Chinese custom. Mother Tongue is a story that describes how Amy Tan's mother was treated unfairly because of her "broken English". She mentions the figure that most Asian students in schools are not enrolled in artistic courses, such as creative writing. It is their "language of intimacy," even though he is a native English speaker. 6. /SMask /None>> Chinese way, came only to show respect, don't stay for dinner. stream In this connection, it is noteworthy that Tan chooses to focus on the school tests she undertook before concluding that her mothers broken style of English has been misunderstood not just literally (by some people whove known her), but in terms of the misleading perceptions of her it has led others to formulate. Our experts can deliver a "Mother Tongue" by Amy Tan essay tailored to your instructions for only $13.00 $11.05/page 308 qualified specialists online Learn more Main text Enter your email address to subscribe to this site and receive notifications of new posts by email. Even though language is not an object you can hold, Amy Tan still uses language to symbolize different, more ambiguous concepts. Although Tan clearly appeals to pathos through personal narration and characterization, she makes some appeals to logos. How do they differ? 7. /SA true Latest answer posted March 29, 2020 at 1:00:09 PM. My mother had gone to the hospital for an appointment, to find out about a benign brain tumor a CAT scan had revealed a month ago. She is the second of three children born to Chinese immigrants, Daisy and John Tan. But I wince when I say that. Tan is making the argument in "Mother Tongue" that she became a better writer when she began to use both the types of English she spoke to write books her mother could understand. -allows Amy to go in to saying how she was effected by her mother's tongue. 1 2 . This was understandable. Lately, I've been giving more thought to the kind of English my mother speaks. What assumptions are people making about Tan's mother in these situations and why? . c. Her mother relies on and trusts Tan to talk to the doctors about the CAT scan. This English is expressive, grammatically distant from proper forms, hard to understand for some native English speakers, and perfectly comfortable to Amy. Review terms and definitions. Tan identify the different categories she discusses in "Mother Tongue" almost in the last paragraph, where she named all the kind of English she uses. What is Amy Tans primary identity according to what she says in paragraphs 1-3 of "Mother Tongue"? 8, Tan)". Tan grew up in Northern California, but when her father and older brother both died from brain tumors in 1966, she moved with her. 3. In paragraph 6, Tan quotes part of one of her mother's conversations. Her mother attends a lecture that Tan is delivering, and Tan realizes that her mother is hearing Tan speak a kind of English that she does not use at home. And all of the ethnic and regional accents in between. When they called her daughter, who had perfect English, they suddenly found her scan. In dividing the essay into sections, she is able to flow through to her points clearly and subtly. When Amy Tan recalls growing up, her mother would have Amy speak on the phone, pretending to be her mother, so that people would take her more seriously. Find and create gamified quizzes, lessons, presentations, and flashcards for students, employees, and everyone else. How many subjects does Tan explore in the essay? How do they further her argument? The phrase "mother tongue" refers to the language people learn to speak first. What is the author's purpose, style, and tone in the story? Tan speculates that because Asian Americans score so much higher on math achievement tests than on English tests, they are encouraged to pursue math and science in college. WhowasJohnWilkesBooth? /Creator ( w k h t m l t o p d f 0 . When she's not working, she's constantly trying to expand her creativity through music, writing, art, and animation. 18, Tan)". a) her mother was speaking that way on purpose just to embarrass Tan b) Her mother had an undiagnosed mental illness c) her mother's spoken language was imperfect, so her ideas must be imperfect d) her mother wasn't intelligent Omitting one of these stories would get rid of one of her key points in the way language can affect a person's life. How does she use language in the rest of her story to portray this rebelliousness? A Summary and Analysis of Amy Tan's 'Mother Tongue' By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) 'Mother Tongue' is an essay by Amy Tan, an American author who was born to Chinese immigrants in 1952. Her mom, who speaks "limited" English, needs Tan to be her "translator" in order to communicate with the native English speakers. In paragraph 18, she talks about how she's seen (in surveys) how most Asian students as a whole do significantly better on math tests than English ones. d. infraction, Identify the following term or individuals and explain their significance. Other Quizlet sets. << Describe how others (those who do not know her intimately) see Tan's mother versus how Tan describes her in "Mother Tongue." think my mother's English almost had an effect on limiting my possibilities in life as well. Students' writing should address the specific experiences and messages of the essays that they choose. /AIS false Latest answer posted October 28, 2019 at 10:43:03 PM, Latest answer posted November 08, 2020 at 3:49:32 AM. Why does Tan believe that envisioning a reader specifically, her mother enabled her to write more authentically? Mother Tongue is an essay by Amy Tan, an American author who was born to Chinese immigrants in 1952. What strategies does she use to make this argument? If all the words in a numbered word group are correct, write C above it. What is the "associative situation" (para. When Amy first decided she wanted to be a writer, she was not encouraged to do so: English was her second language, and the peculiarities of the language (which confuse native English speakers, such as analogies) often confused her. 291 terms. 3 0 obj How does each have its own type of power? c. The story helps readers understand one of Tan's points: her mother's English does have intent, passion, imagery, and rhythm, and it shows the complexity of her thoughts. In both cases, the perception based on her mother's "limited" English gave people the idea that Amy's mother wasn't very bright, or worse, was not worth their time. Start your 48-hour free trial to get access to more than 30,000 additional guides and more than 350,000 Homework Help questions answered by our experts. possibilities" for people in the United States today? Tan says she uses "simple English" around her mother, and while this isn't the same form that her mother speaks, it symbolizes the bond between her and her family. spirituals. What is the author's purpose, style, and tone in the story? As her mother wasn't able to speak English fluently, she wasn't taken seriously by the staff. Mother Tongue. The McGraw Hill Reader: Issues Across the Disciplines. I had to get on the phone and say in an adolescent voice that was not very convincing, "This is Mrs. Fortunately, there are several different literary devices you can concentrate on for your literary analysis. Cite the text as needed to clarify and support your response. How is Amy Tan's use of the phrase "mother tongue" ambiguous? In the essay, Tan discusses her relationship with language, and how her mothers influence has shaped her use of English, as well as her attitude to it. More recent to this story, her mother had been diagnosed with a benign brain tumor, but when she went to the doctor's office, the CAT scan was lost and no one was remotely concerned with her need to understand her prognosishaving lost a husband and son, both to brain tumors. . "What argument is Tan making here about language and its connection to our identity in "Mother Tongue"? How does Tan avoid stereotyping Asian Americans in general and Chinese in particular in this essay? -understand how her mom talked and how it was hard for others to understand her Along with her BS in marketing from Florida State University and MA in museum studies from Johns Hopkins University, she has spent the past 7 years learning how best to reach and teach people using the power of words. Tan mentions several different emotions when talking about her mothers English. 5. Take a practice test. Like other children of immigrants to America, the perceptions of her language abilities almost limited her career path in math or science, yet Tan eventually realized her own American Dream of becoming a full-time writer. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2008. But they seem just as bad, as if everything is limited, including people's perceptions of the limited English speaker. What is the context of Mother Tongue? Finally, Tan highlights the absurdity of writing a book about the relationships between mothers and daughters which her own mother could not understand. She recalls a recent talk she gave, when, upon realising her mother was in the audience, she was confronted with the fact that the formal standard English she was using in the public talk was at odds with the way she spoke at home with her mother. 2)? How do these resemble chapters? Take Tan's mother's experience with the doctors as an example. One time it was a call to her stockbroker in New York. Unlike most of the other literature youve read for class, Mother Tongue by Amy Tan is short and pretty easy to breeze through. It explores these ideas through how Amy and her mother use the English language, and how Amy uses the English language differently around her mother than she does in professionalized contexts. According to Tan, why are so many Asian Americans encouraged to study math and science in college? Explain. /ca 1.0 Writer discussed: Amy Tan's "Mother Tongue" (Link to story) Amy Tan is speaking of writing her book "Joy Luck Club" (there's a scene below), so in that sense it works as a good example of a literacy narrative in that Tan writes about writing something. Tan refers to how much language impacts/changes our lives. The only way I would have gotten that answer right would have been to imagine an associative situation, for example, my being disobedient and staying out past sunset, catching a chill at night, which turns into feverish pneumonia as punishment, which indeed did happen to me. How do you think Kemal Ataturk would have responded to later Islamic modernists such as Sheikh Kabir and perhaps Saira Khan? What does Tan mean when she says, "I think my mother's English almost had an effect on limiting my possibilities in life as well" (para. She reads the Forbes report, listens to Wall Street Week, converses daily with her stockbroker, reads all of Shirley MacLaine's books with easeall kinds of things I can't begin to understand. Mother tongue is usually referred to the first language a person is taught, however I think Tans use of the word mother tongue is much more intimate in a sense that she feels that ere English or her mother tongue is unique to her, and that the variation of English she speaks to her mother is her mother tongue. 2. How could I go about writing four pages about the essay "Mother Tongue" by Amy Tan, citing two or more different authors to support my claims? -however, later she decided that she wanted to capture what language ability tests can never reveal "her intent, her passion, her imagery, the rhythms of her speech and the nature of her thoughts. Students may conclude that Tan and her mother did not have a close relationship if they support this opinion with valid examples. What is Amy Tans primary identity according to what she says in paragraphs 1-3 of "Mother Tongue"? 2023 eNotes.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved. She is motivated to make this argument to explain her method as a writer and her intellectual, literary, linguistic, and personal progress in uniting her two identities and to show that these identities need not be separated. 8. Because there are quite a few different tones in this short story, they transition from one to the other. Now all you have to do is analyze them. She had more difficulty answering questions presented in English class due to the nature of language, being able to be interpreted in more than one way. In Amy Tan's short story "Mother Tongue," explain the essence of what "mother tongue" signifies in the story. The class tests at school which reduced English proficiency to an ability to recognise a correct answer are thus contrasted with Tans resounding final words of Mother Tongue, which see her seeking to capture the passion of her mother, the nature of her thoughts, and the imagery she uses: all things which her daughter has clearly inherited a respect for, and which school tests fail to capture or observe. What we would call proper English symbolizes both Tans acceptance into American society and a separation from her mother. To what extent do you think that speaking a non- standardized English (through grammatical differences or an accent) "limits . Students in disagreement might point to Dove's consuming interest in reading, which seems largely uninfluenced by her family, and Cisneros's belief that her desire to write came from a "hunger" she felt, even with her family. In "Mother Tongue," do you think that Tan and her mother have a close relationship? It helps us to understand the way Tan approaches and uses language within the stories that make up The Joy Luck Club. Remember this quote as you read through and relate the rest of the content to this idea. -Informal - conversational; "So you'll have some idea.." But now you have to do a literary analysis on itand suddenly its short length seems like more of a burden than a blessing. The different forms of English that mother and daughter speak are also a product of their backgrounds: whilst Tans mother is a Chinese immigrant to America, Tan was born in the United States and has grown up, and been educated, in an English-speaking culture. What is your response to Amy Tan's point about the value of different languages? In fact, Tan uses the same tone in the beginning and end of her storythe reader starts at a homebase, sees the journey Tan is leading them on, and returns right back to where they started but with more insight than before. The local people call putong, the river east side, he belong to that side local people. Use Tan's ideas about different kinds of English from "Mother Tongue" as a basis to consider the kinds of English you encounter every day. >> How would you describe Tan's attitude toward her mother? And here you would be presented with a list of four possible pairs, one of which showed the same kind of relationship: red is to stoplight, bus is to arrival, chills is to fever, yawn is to boring: Well, I could never think that way. What is the difference? Illustrate your observations with examples from Tan's essay, your own experience, or others you know. 1. Her mother's language is colorful, powerful, and direct. From guilty to gracious, annoyed to appreciative, Amy Tan uses a few different tones throughout Mother Tongue. Identify these tones and explain how they are employed (the language used to convey the tones), and what effect it has on the reader. Amy Tan also believes her mothers English affected her daughters school results. indiiigo. She recounts a time when the doctors at the hospital were unsympathetic towards her mother when they lost the results of the CAT scan they had undertaken on her brain, but as soon as the hospital at her mothers insistence called her daughter, they issued a grovelling apology. She then contrasts this with a moment when she was walking down the street with her mother and she used the more clipped, informal English she naturally uses with her mother, and her husband. And my mother was standing in the back whispering loudly, "Why he don't send me check, already two weeks late. a. fragment 3. Tan is making the argument in "Mother Tongue" that she became a better writer when she began to use both the types of English she spoke to write books her mother could understand. Identify them and describe their effect. "But I have noticed in surveys in fact, just last week that Asian students, as a whole, always do significantly better on math achievement tests than in English. Tan says she uses simple English around her mother, and while this isnt the same form that her mother speaks, it symbolizes the bond between her and her family. And then I said in perfect English, "Yes, I'm getting rather concerned. I am not a scholar of English or literature. If too important won't have to stay too long. Accessed 2 May 2023. Who are the experts?Our certified Educators are real professors, teachers, and scholars who use their academic expertise to tackle your toughest questions. Flashcards. Answers will vary widely, depending on students' personal experiences, situations, and viewpoints. The same was true with word analogies, pairs of words in which you were supposed to find some sort of logical, semantic relationship -- for example, "Sunset is to nightfall as is to ." 2023 eNotes.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved. In Amy Tan's short story "Mother Tongue," explain the essence of what "mother tongue" signifies in the story. Log in here. Identify the message of Tan's essay, "Mother Tongue." "And the correct answer always seemed to be the most bland combinations of thoughts, for example, "Even though Tom was shy, Mary thought he was charming:' with the grammatical structure "even though" limiting the correct answer to some sort of semantic opposites, so you wouldn't get answers like, "Even though Tom was foolish, Mary thought he was ridiculous:' Well, according to my mother, there were very few limitations as to what Tom could have been and what Mary might have thought of him. Describe what the fighting is like and what you feel are the strengths and weaknesses of your army. With the stockbroker, Tan was the one who would step in for her mother over the phone in order to express her mother's thoughts for her. Finally, she wraps it up nicely with a note about how she now uses those various forms of English in her career. What is Amy Tans primary identity according to what she says in paragraphs 1-3 of "Mother Tongue"? Get started for free! What does the title "Mother Tongue" suggest? Multiple-choice 30 seconds 1 pt Who's the author of the story? But I wince when I say that. I was saying things like, "The intersection of memory upon imagination" and "There is an aspect of my fiction that relates to thus-and-thus'--a speech filled with carefully wrought grammatical phrases, burdened, it suddenly seemed to me, with nominalized forms, past perfect tenses, conditional phrases, all the forms of standard English that I had learned in school and through books, the forms of English I did not use at home with my mother. "How Poetry Comes to Me" TPCASTT // Gary Snyd, "Common Ground" TPCASTT // Judith Ortiz Cofer, SpringBoard English Language Arts: Grade 10, myPerspectives: English Language Arts, California (Grade 9, Volume 1), Glencoe Literature Course 4: The Readers Choice. Tan grew up in California and in Switzerland and studied English and linguistics at San Jose State University (B.A., 1973; M.A., 1974) and the University of California, Berkeley. You should know that my mother's expressive command of English belies how much she actually understands. Test. Her mother gave her praise that meant a great deal to Tan: I knew I had succeeded where it counted when my mother finished reading my book and gave me her verdict: 'So easy to read.'. It has always bothered me that I can think of no other way to describe it other than "broken," as if it were damaged and needed to be fixed, as if it lacked a certain wholeness and soundness. Then write an essay in which you explain the use of English in your life and communications. Latest answer posted October 28, 2019 at 10:43:03 PM, Latest answer posted May 19, 2020 at 7:56:33 PM, Latest answer posted November 08, 2020 at 3:49:32 AM. /Height 155 -speech-like; "I was giving a talk to a large group of people." (para. -better explain her mother's tongue and how others were effected (including herself) Write the correct word in the space next to given definition. The "different Englishes" talked about in the essay range from perfect to broken english. Jing-mei's mother quizzes her on various topicsincluding state and national capitals, complicated mathematics, and weather predictionin hopes that she might possess a talent like the children. 3. So I never did well on tests like that. Underline the verb in parentheses that correctly completes the sentence by agreeing with the subject. They resemble chapters in a book as they each have a different focus, while still relating all to each other and being interconnected. At one point, Tan writes about being embarrassed about her mother. Educators go through a rigorous application process, and every answer they submit is reviewed by our in-house editorial team. Answer: to inform readers based on Tan's childhood experience Explanation: Amy tan is a Chinese-American writer, she is the daughter of Chinese immigrants and her books reflect a lot on what she has experienced witnessing the culture clash between Chinese and North American cultures.

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