Mother Tongue Essay Example For Students

Mother Tongue Essay Outline1 Introduction2 Is it difficult for children to speak the native language?3 The main essence of the essay about mother tongue4 The main concepts of the author Introduction The native language is a very important part of human culture. The mother tongue is an integral part of human consciousness.  It is not only a tool of communication but a sociological tool of measuring individual worth. The theme of cultural encounters and intercultural communication is not new in fiction. We live in a globalized world where different cultures are in constant interaction. The process of assimilation of immigrants in a new culture is quite difficult. It especially influences on children, who grow at the junction of two cultures and cannot identify themselves with any of them. Amy Tan, an American novelist, presented this topic in her analytical essay Mother Tongue. This essay is strong evidence that language influences on our life. Is it difficult for children to speak the native language? The children of immigrants are the link between parents and the new culture in which they live. This function of children is due to the fact that children understand the traditions and values inherent in the culture of their parents, but they share the foundations and customs of the new cultural community, the new society. The essay â€Å"Mother tongue† is devoted to the problem of linguistic identity and self-awareness. Amy Tan grew up in two greatly different worlds, speaking in different Englishes. In the essay two types of language are contrasted: dialect English, she also calls it â€Å"broken† or â€Å"limited† English and standard or official English, the language of business. The author pictures and explains how the ignorance of her mother influences her. The first part of the work is dedicated to Amy’s warm feelings about learning languages. Moreover, the girl highlights strong superpower of the language as it is the main tool of verbal communication. It is interesting to read how she illustrates how they communicated within the family as their languages were different. The main essence of the essay about mother tongue Then Amy describes how other people perceive and characterize the language of her mother, that someone understand 50 percent of her speech, someone even none of it, and she tries to defend it by the fact that her mother is Chinese immigrant and that the â€Å"limited† English spoken in her family â€Å"has become a language of intimacy, a different sort of English that relates to family talk†.   This citation shows that for Amy, this speech is filled with meaning, color and expressiveness. Despite the fact, that she clearly understands that this language is grammatically and structurally incorrect, Amy understands her mother because her voice helped the daughter to learn this world. Amy Tan uses various rhetorical devices such as anecdote and oxymoron to convey her confused and fault, but the loving attitude toward the limited English of her mother. Amy  also explains how she gives her mother the possibility  to learn and experience  how language is used as a to ol within the social and cultural facets of society. So, â€Å"Mother tongue† is a play of words based on direct and contextual values. Polysemy is peculiar to the words â€Å"mother† and â€Å"tongue†, their meaning can only be installed in a specific context by Amy Tan answers. As part of this â€Å"Mother Tongue† essay is understood as both a mother tongue and a mother’s language (there are all the properties and characteristics inherent in the speech of the mother of the author). The importance of mother tongue for Amy Tan is more intimate in a sense that her mother tongue is unique to her, and that the variation of English she speaks to her mother is her mother tongue. The Notre Dame Legend EssayMother tongue essay example 3 â€Å"Mother tongue† by Amy Tan is a good example of how much your language skills mean in your everyday life. As Chinese immigrants, Amy and her mother can support this idea with a bunch of real-life stories as examples. It can be hard to believe how difficult it is for her mother sometimes to get a good quality customer service or receive a patient and nice treatment from somebody. Indeed the writer truly believes her mothers English is perfect in its own way as it has become one of the many Englishes she uses in her books. We can take one very important lesson from this stories: Not to judge people by their language or appearance but by their actions. Mother tongue   Summary I am an English writer who is deeply in love with the English language. In my daily life, I am always fascinated by importance and the power of the language, how it can evoke pictures in your head and make you feel good or bad, make you cry or yell. This is why I adore language which is the tool I work with during the writing process, and I use all of the English I grew up with. Just a few days ago I was giving a speech to my readers about my book named â€Å"The Joy Luck Club† which was already given by me a lot of times before but this time it was different. My mother was present in the hall and was listening to the sentences I pronounced in the English I have never used at home with her. All the talk was composed of well-thought sentences with correctly used English grammar. So it was far away from the English I used at home with my mother and even more different from the English my mother used with me. Most of my friends used to say they understand only 50 percent of what she says and others said they understand nothing at all. Usually, I would get ashamed of the way my mother spoke her so-called â€Å"broken English† and tried to help her as much as I could in the communication with other people. It goes without saying that my mother ´s English has influenced me a lot in the school years. It was hard for me to do well in literature tests where I could barely understand simple semantic structures like â€Å"sunset is to nightfall† which simply means â€Å"sunset precedes nightfall.† My teachers used to enroll me in Mathematics more that in creative activities. Yet this did not stop me from trying, and I worked hard on my English skills as I wanted to write books so much. There were a few bad attempts of writing where I used sophisticated words introduced into grammatically complex sentences until I understood what a privilege I had of knowing so many Englishes, from the correct written form to my mothers â€Å"broken English†, and managed to mix all of them into a simple and convenient writing style which can now express a lot more than I could even imagine.