Amy Tan's "Mother Tongue": Rhetorical Strategies and Language Identity

Introduction

Amy Tan's essay "Mother Tongue" offers a compelling exploration of how the author uses rhetorical strategies to advance her argument while critiquing cultural standards. Tan writes of the different forms of English she uses in her life, 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 us, and because of this, it is both easy to read and easy to apply to everyday and classroom situations.

Language, Culture, and the Mother Tongue

Throughout Amy Tan's essay, she compares the English she uses every day to the English she uses with family and close friends. She uses the English she has learned as a tool to express the stilted English that makes up her cultural memories and the words of her mother. She writes, "But to me, my mother's English is perfectly clear, perfectly natural. It's my mother tongue. Her language, as I hear it, is vivid, direct, full of observation and imagery. That was the language that helped shape the way I saw things, expressed things, made sense of the world" (Tan). Some of Tan's earliest memories, therefore, include memories of her mother's stilted English, which is both comforting and deeply cultural to her. She knows her mother's education and ideas are not stilted, but she also recognizes that her mother's limited way of speaking might make her appear "limited" or inferior to other listeners. She notes, "I've heard other terms used, 'limited English,' for example. But they seem just as bad, as if everything is limited, including people's perceptions of the limited English speaker" (Tan).

Tan recognizes that the way people speak may categorize them in the minds of listeners, and yet that categorization could often not be further from the truth. How a person speaks is as much a part of their cultural upbringing as it is a reflection of formalized, written language, as Tan's experience clearly indicates. Her culture is interwoven with her language, giving her many different communicative options, and her style depends as much on her audience as on her education and understanding of English. In fact, Tan notes, "Sociologists and linguists probably will tell you that a person's developing language skills are more influenced by peers. But I do think that the language spoken in the family, especially in immigrant families which are more insular, plays a large role in shaping the language of the child" (Tan). Families play an important part in the development of their children, and language is a central element of that development. Tan's embarrassment about her mother's English is just one facet of the culture that shaped her as she grew up. To combat that embarrassment, she used English as a tool to build an astonishing career for herself — transforming the language of her youth into the foundation of her future.

Tan's essay also clearly illustrates how people use language differently across situations. In her essay, she uses a comfortable, informal form of English with her mother and husband, and much more formal, conventional English in her writing and public speaking. Most people do the same thing, whether they are aware of it or not. Teenagers, for example, may use slang with their friends while adopting quite different language in the classroom or with their parents. Scientists may use technical jargon and shorthand with colleagues while speaking more casually with family and friends. There are varying levels of language use in virtually everything people do, and so no single form of language can ever serve all the different purposes people have for the spoken and written word.

Code-Switching and the Many Forms of English

Much of this difference is rooted in culture as well as education. Code-switching — the practice of alternating between languages or registers depending on context — is a natural feature of multilingual and multicultural experience. Tan's experience clearly shows that culture and ethnicity create barriers between people and generate misunderstandings regarding a person's intelligence, social status, and ability to learn. Her essay discusses the difficulties Asian-American children face in acquiring varied concepts of English, and suggests this may partly explain why so many Asian-American students pursue careers in engineering and science. She writes, "[…] Asian students, as a whole, always do significantly better on math achievement tests than in English. And this makes me think that there are other Asian-American students whose English spoken in the home might also be described as 'broken' or 'limited'" (Tan). Nearly any ethnic minority in the United States faces similar barriers at one time or another, because the language of their home may differ from the language of their schooling and everyday life, causing them to be perceived as "broken" or "limited."

Tan's experience captures the tension between the mainstream world where she lives and works and the ethnic world of her mother, which has given her a rich and varied cultural history but pulls her in two very different directions. One critic observes, "However, as Tan points out, speaking her mother's version of English gives her bicultural insight and strength, and she sees the beauty and wisdom in her mother's language" (Bloom 84). The same can be said of the teenager, the scientist, and even the lover — all of whom speak different forms of language for different situations. These different forms represent different facets of life, and together they combine to create a full and fascinating blend of culture and social identity.

As Tan eloquently notes, these divergent types of English can lead to feelings of alienation within the family and in wider society. Tan describes how clerks treat her mother and recounts her own embarrassment at her mother's English. She writes, "And I had plenty of empirical evidence to support me: the fact that people in department stores, at banks, and at restaurants did not take her seriously, did not give her good service, pretended not to understand her, or even acted as if they did not hear her" (Tan). These differing forms of language clearly draw a line between those who speak English as a first language and those who do not, creating barriers in the classroom, the workplace, and virtually every aspect of life.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the significance of Tan's observations in her essay are quite clear and convincing. Language is often the primary lens through which people perceive an individual, and there are many forms of language. People speak different forms of language in different situations, and language is a major element of both cultural and personal development. Tan's essay eloquently illustrates the differences between formal and informal language while lovingly describing the "mother tongue" of her family — the linguistic foundation that helped her grow into the writer she is today.