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Mother Tongue
Rhetorical Techniques in Amy Tan's "Mother Tongue"
As anyone who has ever been in an argument can tell you, what you say is often far less important than how you say it. Even in other less-aggressive circumstances, perception is generally far more important than substance -- this is certainly the case when it comes to politics, and often the case in more personal situations and relationships. When it comes to more serious and supposedly more rigorous fields such as literary analysis, philosophy, and social commentary, the playing with subjectivities of individual perception is called rhetoric, and it can occur in addition to or in spite of the factual substance of what is being said. Rhetoric is not necessarily a bad thing, though it can certainly be used to twist the truth and create negative consequences -- it is simply a tool that can be applied to language to make an argument or stance more convincing, and can be used for good purposes as easily as for more nefarious ones. In Amy Tan's brief essay "Mother Tongue," the author uses a variety of rhetorical techniques to convince the reader that while the English spoken by her mother -- and one of the "Englishes" spoken by herself -- may not be correct according to the standards of grammarians and other academes, it is still a valid and vibrant form of the...
By grouping these various Englishes together in this emphasized manner, Tan is subtly (or not so subtly) hinting to the reader that the weight of one English should be seen as equal to the weight of another English. In the context of the quoted sentence, every English is equally useful, and every English is also equally a part of Tan's childhood and life experience. By equating the different Englishes with one another, Tan makes it difficult for the reader to discount one without discounting the others, and likewise makes it difficult to elevate or respect one without similarly elevating or respecting the others. Before even describing the English that is the subject of Tan's title, she has implanted in the reader's mind that it is equal to other Englishes.
Parallellism is another rhetorical technique that comes up in Tan's writing wit a fair amount of regularity. In one prominent usage of the technique, the author lists all of the things that her…
Mother Tongue and Newman Those who immigrate into the United States from other countries are encouraged to adapt to the culture of the majority population, namely white males of European descent. Language is the component of culture which is first targeted by those who try to force assimilation. When a person comes to the United States, they will feel compelled to learn English and be able to read and write in
When she began writing, she chose to envision her mother as the reader because that was how she could capture the real beauty of language in its various forms: "I 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." Amy Tan's essay is definitely an effective and powerful statement not only on
Mother Tongue, by Amy Tan [...] how the author uses rhetorical strategies to make her argument, while critiquing cultural standards. Amy Tan writes of the different forms of English she uses in her life, while illustrating the myriad ways that people express themselves depending on their audience and their needs. Everyone uses different phrases and expressions depending on their surroundings and their goals. Tan's essay applies to all of
(Although Hispanic voters, demographically, may seem to be aligned with the Democratic Party on class issues, on social issues they tend to be conservative and have been eagerly courted by the Republican Party in many states). Passing a mandatory English law would be a validation of racism against Hispanics, and even encourage discrimination in the name of anti-immigration sentiment. "Romanticism exalted language, made it mystical, sublime -- a bond of
Tame a Wild Tongue Language and Identity in Anzaldua How to Tame a Wild Tongue How to Tame a Wild Tongue is a fascinating internal expose of the evolution and development of language among immigrants of Spanish linguistic heritage. Gloria Anzaldua recognizes herself as a "blended" individual who speaks and contributes to a myriad of native and blended languages that are all varied and regionally expressive of both native Mexican and
Anzaldua Like our genes, our native tongues are both unique and passed down from generation to generation. Native tongues are integral and inescapable parts of our personal and collective identity, like skin color or gender. Therefore, language can be a stigma, an indicator or race, ethnicity, and culture. In the book Borderlands: La Frontera, Gloria Anzaldua explores expressions of Chicano culture in America through an analysis of the language she calls