Author of books such as The Joy Luck Club Amy Tan wrote this award-winning essay about her struggles between her “private English” at home and her “different English” in public.
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Author of books such as The Joy Luck Club Amy Tan wrote this award-winning essay about her struggles between her “private English” at home and her “different English” in public.
She writes in this essay how her perception of her mother was a reflection of her English:
Just last week, I was walking down the street with my mother, and I again found myself conscious of the English I was using, the English I do use with her. We were talking about the price of new and used furniture and I heard myself saying this: “Not waste money that way.”
…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. 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 her.
Tan comes to terms with her identity by accepting her mother’s dialect (her mother’s tongue or language); she realizes that it is a unique part of her cultural identity and heritage (her “Mother Tongue.)
Discussion Question
Read the .pdf of Tan’s essay below and address the following question:
According to Tan, why is it important that she learn to accept her mother’s “broken” English?
Instructions
Respond to the question as directly as possible in the first line of your response.
In the body of your response support your answer by referring to a specific passage from the reading in your own words. This is referred to in the grading rubric as paraphrasing.
Make one additional contribution to the discussion, either a comment on another post, a reflection on the topic, or a link to a related website or video (with commentary on your link).
Resources
Review the instructor introduction to each reading which is located right above each discussion question.
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