Rhetorical Essay Analysis: Lost in Translation Amy Tan Mother Tongue

You encounter different people from various cultures, religions, and backgrounds everywhere you go. There are roughly 7,100 languages currently spoken worldwide, and every language has varied vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. The primary conception of language is a form of communication. However, it also shapes how we think, grasps the estimation of our intelligence, and is a form of identification. People frequently gauge intelligence by their proficiency in a language. A person is typically regarded as brilliant if they can communicate their views clearly and effectively in their language. “Broken English” is a phrase that society created to characterize someone’s foreignness and show that the person is uneducated. However, society doesn’t acknowledge that people of many races struggle with identification issues and cannot hone the English dialect. Along with their inability to speak fluent English, numerous ethnic groups suffer adverse repercussions due to racial stigmas and prejudices. Racial and ethnic inequalities have harmed our world, resulting in cultural inadequacies, structural barriers, a lack of opportunities, and discriminatory practices. People should be embraced for who they are, regardless of how effectively they communicate or their appearance.   

Amy Tan is a Chinese American author and novelist whose works frequently examine mother-daughter relationships in the context of Chinese culture. As a Chinese immigrant, Tan’s mother struggled to speak English fluently. In Amy Tan’s creative essay Mother Tongue, she describes the overall sense of language and the social restrictions that “broken English” can produce. To further develop this theory, Tan examines her English usage, her mother’s speech, and how society reacts to various English use. 

Code-switching is changing or modifying one’s conduct, speech, or appearance to suit the needs of a particular group or audience. It is a survival tactic that enables a person to easily fit into various social and professional contexts, especially if they are a minority. It can be utilized deliberately or unconsciously, with or without your knowledge. In her essay, Tan first sets the stage by analyzing the many English dialects she employs as a child of immigrants and how they shift based on her surroundings. Next, Tan discussed her life narrative, writing background, and her novel The Joy Luck Club at a gathering. Tan discovers that the English she used with her family, and when conversing with people at the event significantly differed from the English, she used when speaking to a vast group of people. Relaying her speech, she said,” There is an aspect of my fiction that relates to thus and thus.” She spoke fluent English with complete sentences, correct tense, and no grammatical errors. In contrast, while with her family, she would say, “not waste money that way.” Throughout her life, she has battled the constant form of code-switching. She altered her speech and conduct depending on who she was with to conform to different societal expectations. She soon realized that her family “broken English” was a catalyst that complicated and limited her prospects in life and caused her family to face many challenges and discrimination.    

The inability of immigrants to communicate fluently in English exposes them to various challenges, including racism and discrimination. Throughout her piece, Tan uses her mother’s experience as a Chinese immigrant living in America and how broken English only caused her more hardship. Tan specifically discusses the humiliation she feels due to her mother’s inability to speak English fluently. Tan recalls as a child; she would pretend to be her mother on the phone. “I was forced to ask for information or even to complain and yell at people who had been rude to her.” Because of her mother’s poor command of English, Tan had to help her mother in several situations when she was not taken seriously. For example, Tan described a situation where her mother requested the CAT scan results, she had at a hospital. The hospital denied her mother’s request for a CAT scan, claiming they misplaced her mother’s scan results. Because of Tan’s mother’s language barrier, she has been pushed aside and faced a glimpse of discrimination. Tan used this incident to shed light on how language is perceived and its function in people’s lives. By providing the audience with information about these events, Tan allows us to empathize with her family and their difficulties as Chinese immigrants. Tan recognized the necessity of assimilating into society for success and ease of living. Assimilation increases possibilities for immigrants and improves security, but it also steadily robs people of their personal identity and family customs.  

Both environment and culture influence a child’s linguistic development. Tan further faulted her mother’s broken English for constraining her opportunities for a successful life. Tan noticed as a child that she performed worse in English than in her other classes. Tan frequently attributed her mother’s shortcomings in her IQ tests, English classes, and SAT English portion to the poor English she had picked up at home. The same difficulties arise in school for many Asian Americans. Based on her education and language studies during her school years, Tan shares her opinions on both the preconceptions of Asian Americans and the English language as well as their culture. Amy thinks that because Asian American students often spoke “broken English,” teachers have steered them away from English and writing classes and into math and science programs. According to Tan, her employers told her that her “writing was her worst skill, and she should hone her talents toward account management.” Due to the immigration status of their parents and the limited English proficiency of their parents, Asian children were never encouraged to pursue careers in writing and English. The inability to communicate in fluent English is mistakenly labeled as incapacitation. However, your ability to communicate in English effectively will affect your social standing, career chances, and future. 

As children mature, they come to understand the extent to which their linguistic past has influenced their way of thinking. Children of immigrants are taught to despise and regard their native speech as “less than” from an early age. When children hear “broken English,” they are taught to laugh and assume they are superior to others. They sincerely believe that speaking English fluently equates to having high intelligence. This mentality ultimately feeds the prejudices and racial stigmas that many minorities experience. They are surrounded by a world that continuously evaluates everything about them, from their appearance to how they speak and behave. The ongoing effects include cultural inadequacies, identity loss, institutional impediments, a lack of opportunities, and discriminatory practices. No one’s abilities ought to be constrained by their color, socioeconomic standing, or level of language proficiency. Help kids become more proficient in the language and give them a future filled with ample opportunities rather than adding fuel to the fire and doing more harm.