Mingdong Chen
Freshman
composition
Ms. Nargiza
Matyakubova
September 27
2013
Literacy
analysis
In the “mother tongue” by Amy Tan,
the author utilize the literary technics of flashback to demonstrate her mother
difficult experiences of speaking the “broken English” in the daily life and
receiving the unequal treatment because of the lack of being capable of
speaking fluent English, She also describes her captivation to the power of
language, how she wields the languages in the different place with different
people she meets, and how she is influenced by her “broken English “ to create
her ways of looking at the things, expressed things, make sense of the world,
which helps her to be a successful writer with the help of her mother. The
author establish the main idea that to be the capable of overcoming the daily
obstacles and come true the dream.
The “fractured English” does
not blockade the expression of person’s thoughts. In the article, author
depicts her mother speaks the so-called “fractured English” to communicate with
her stockbrokers, the doctor, and the servers in the restaurants, yet she
receives the cultural discrimination because her impeccable broken English
created by her background of borning in foreign country and receive different
education of languages. When she states “ and I was sitting there red-faced and
quiet, and my mother, the real Mrs. Tan, was shouting at his boss in her
impeccable broken English.” Which suggests that her mother Mrs. Tan is not
limited to express what she wants to say to the boss because of the lack of
fluent English, she bravely stand up against her stockbroker’s irresponsibility,
that is the responsibility to herself, she does not flinch in the front of the
obstacle, whereas she wants to show her self-respect instead of keeping silent
to the stockbroker. By doing that, the author realizes that her mother’s “limited
English” does not completely limit her mother daily communication, that is how she
overthrows the hard times and influences auther’s ways of viewing in the future
and of attitude to her mother, the author used to be ashamed of her mother
“broken English” and red-faced when her mother shouts at the boss with impeccable
English, nowadays she perfectly understand it.
The processing of use of
different types of languages. the author becomes aware of this was when giving
a speech about her published book named the joy club, her mother is in the
audience, and she realizes she is using the academic language she learnt from
the school, a language is totally different from that one used with her mother
in the family, the other example is when author talking the price of the
furniture by saying “ not waste money that way”, those events show the author’s
skillful use of languages with different people since her former boss consider
the writing is her worst skill of all, so she get great progress in use of
languages influenced by her mother “broken English .” that is also how the
author deal with use of the languages. In other words, her mother “broken
English” helps the author develop her skillful use of languages.
From the pre-med to
English. The author once mentions that her math skill is better than her
writing skill in school, and then she decides to become a freelance writer
while her boss tells her that she could not write. However she finally go on to
write her fiction, she does not follow the expectation that people want her to
be an account manager because of her talents towards that. When the author
states “I later decided I should envision a reader for the stories I would
write, and the reader I decided upon was my mother.” This suggests that
author’s mother somewhat influences her to go on her writing habit, so her
mother continuously speak “broken English” as a good example to make the author
continuously do her writing major, thus her mother plays a significant role in
the author’s life to help her overcome the challenges of writing to be a
successful writer in the later days.
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