Rhetorical Analysis Of Amy Tan's Mother Tongue

by Chi Luu, the concept of how one’s accent can impact how they are perceived is explored. The author explains that “…accents can be a shortcut that allows us to ‘linguistically profile’ others based on the stereotypes of their regional backgrounds, class, gender or ethnicity” (Luu). Due to how people with British accents are portrayed in various

Learning a new language is difficult and sometimes can cause a mental detachment for a person between the use of his or her mother tongue and his or her second language. Eva Hoffman’s Learning Life in a New Language illustrates her struggles of learning and accepting the use of the English language after her family moves from Poland to Canada. This transition proves to be challenging as she continually makes comparisons between the different languages and feels as though the learning of English with her attachment to Polish creates two different identities within her. In the text, Hoffman makes use of Aristotle’s rhetorical appeals ‘logos’, ‘pathos’ and ‘ethos’ as well as other modes of development to talk about her experiences. The purpose of this research is to analyze and discuss the use of these rhetorical appeals and other modes of development to argue that learning a new language is challenging and can create a struggle with having an identity in a language.

The Skin That We Speak The way a person speaks is a direct link to a person’s culture and the environment which he or she was raised in. A person’s language, skin color as well as economic status influences the way he or she is perceived by others. Lisa Delpit and eleven other educators provide different viewpoints on how language from students of different cultures, ethnicity, and even economic status can be misinterpreted due to slang and dialect or nonstandard English by the teachers as well as his or her own peers. The Skin That We Speak: Thoughts on Language and Culture in the Classroom by Lisa Delpit and Joanne Kilgour Dowdy, who collected essays from a diverse group of educators and scholars to reflect on the issue of language

Nearly every American speaks a dialect of English that varies from the dialect that is considered “correct,” or Standard American English (SAE); however, although dialects are entirely acceptable variants of English, some dialectal speakers experience increased prejudice and hardships due to their speech patterns, such as negative stigmas and intelligibility issues. A common hardship experienced by children who speak African American Vernacular English (AAVE), which is spoken by many African Americans, is increased difficulty mastering many literacy skills in schools. To explain, because AAVE differs in the syntax, phonology, semantics, and pragmatics from SAE, many children having difficulty mediating between the language system they are learning

Fitting Into American Culture In the excerpt from The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston reveals the importance of fitting in by retelling the hardships of a 1st generation immigrant in the American school system. Embarrassed by her accent and broken English, Kingston refused to talk in Kindergarten, a problem many 1st generation immigrants have faced. Kingston’s self-esteem was completely based on how her voice sounded, claiming that, “lt spoils my day with self-disgust when I hear my broken voice come skittering out into the open” (132). Self-worth and the idea of fitting in goes hand in hand, so when Kingston felt as if she could not fit in because of her voice, her self-worth went down, straining the importance of how abandoned one feels

Throughout most countries especially The United States we come across many different ethnic traditions and backgrounds, and while acknowledging those individuals we have to come to a brand new level of understanding as far as the art of communication goes. Comparing two of my biggest generational influences has given me a more broad understanding of who we are and where we come from. As males and females of all colors and walks of life mature we develop certain quirks from our environment, and a “quirk” is a peculiar which usually sets us apart from what society may define as “normal”. For example David Sedaris recalls many of his unfavorable quirks in chapter one of his early 2000’s best sellers “Me Talk Pretty One Day”, within this first chapter David Sedaris thinks back to his days in “Speech Therapy” with an instructor by the name of “Chrissy Sampson” who wasn’t too fond of the way he spoke. David Sedaris sees this change as much more than a class to be judged on “how well one grasps the complexities of American linguistics”

In her writing, Tan often describes her experiences as the child of Chinese immigrants, growing up in northern California and living in American culture. Tan explains how she has learned to embrace the many Englishes her mother speaks and how her background has also caused her to have different Englishes. While others classify her mother's English as "broken" she finds no fault in it. In Tan's view, just because something is broken does not necessarily mean that it is in need of fixing. In her essay, author Amy Tan addresses the connections between languages and cultures in describing the different Englishes her mother uses.

My Rhetorical Analysis Language is a part one’s identity and culture, which allows one to communicate with those of the same group, although when spoken to someone of another group, it can cause a language barrier or miscommunication in many different ways. In Gloria Anzaldua’s article, “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, which was taken from her book Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, she is trying to inform her readers that her language is what defines her. She began to mention how she was being criticized by both English and Spanish Speakers, although they both make up who she is as a person. Then, she gave convincing personal experiences about how it was to be a Chicana and their different types of languages. Moreover, despite the fact that her language was considered illegitimate, Anzaldua made it clear that she cannot get rid of it until the day she dies, or as she states (on page 26) “Wild tongues can’t be, they can only be cut out.”

The United States is made up of some of the most diverse and interesting cultures in the world. Jamila Lyiscott proves this by showing her different dialects and how they are all equally important. Lyiscott believes that the way she speaks towards her parents, towards her friends, and towards her colleagues are all one in the same.  Throughout the entirety of her speech, Lyiscott changes up her vocal patterns and dialects so that the audience can understand first hand what each of these dialects are. When she talks about her father, Lyiscott uses her native tongue, when she talks to her fellow neighbors and close friends she switches it up to a more urbanized dialect, and when she is in school she masks the other two dialects with a professional sounding language.

In the article Tan states, “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” (pg 2). Tan explains, because her mother wasn't introduced to the secondary discourse, she wasn't given the opportunity to extend her knowledge in literacy, so with that, Tan was ashamed that her mother had “broken” English, while Tan herself was already on the road to be more successful in literacy than her mother ever was. Tan was the lucky one between her mother and herself because she was given the opportunity to learn from her mother's mistakes and take in the secondary discourse that were available for her.

Rhetorical Precis #4: “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan Amy Tan’s purpose in her article “Mother Tongue” is to show the influence of her mother’s style of english. She also relates this to a more broad topic of the idea that there are many different types of english that people speak that are tailored to whoever they are speaking to. She begins this piece by stating plainly that she is not an english scholar. Instead of decreasing her credibility it actually increases it and paints this piece as a more personal set of observations rather than a bland overview of the entire language.

Summary/Reflection: The use of dialogue and method of comparison are constantly used to help Tan develop and support her essay. Through the dialogue and comparison used, Tan is able to effectively display the differences in language between herself, her mother, and the rest of the world (such as the stockbroker and doctors handling the CAT scan.) Along with the use of dialogue and comparison, Tan’s essay focuses on numerous appeals to ethos and pathos, but not many appeals to logos. The use of multiple rhetoric strategies and references to personal anecdotes help Tan to successfully convey her message and achieve her

217- School of Performing Arts (Community School Setting). In various interviews with Asian’s teacher, Ms. Jones, who is Asian’s Math teacher, express concerns with explaining patterns in the number of zeros of the product when multiplying a number by powers of 10, explaining patterns in the placement of decimal point when a decimal is multiplied or divided by a power of 10, and converting measurement units correctly, in addition, Asian needs more instruction in many other math areas. Ms. Mondal, Asian’s ELA teacher, made mention of strengths, Asian is able to retell and quote accurately to explain detail from a text. He is able to compare and contrast two different characters and text. He is able to interpret figurative language, identify themes, and character traits.

She can’t seem to bare on having the image of being invisible to others who do not understand where she is from. Somehow she likes to be different from her surrounds, because she understand and speaks two different languages, but she cannot find the comfort she always wanted. A sense of unity towards her family and the people around her is the comfort of expressing on what she feels and

The first example he gives demonstrates the ability of math, contrasting Western students and Asian students. The number-naming systems in Western and Asian languages are completely different. The number system in Asia is logical and the words are brief, allowing more numbers to be memorized and recalled. The opposite is true for the system in Western society. This difference allows Asian children to learn numbers much faster than American children.