Rhetorical Analysis of “Mother Tongue” Amy Tang

Intended Audience: Non-Standard English Speakers, Asian Americans

 

Standard English has and is still the main language of a multicultural society like the United States of America. Spanish, French, Mandarin, Patois and a lot of other cultural languages are spoken by many of the people of America, but it isn’t normalized and without it being normalized, discrimination becomes an issue. Amy Tang, an Asian American who spoke and wrote in perfect Standard English, wrote “Mother Tongue, an essay published in 1990. She speaks about the discrimination faced by her family members in American Society as non-Standard English speakers. In Amy Tangs essay, she argues that “Broken English” is an offensive term that shouldn’t be used because everyone has a different cultural background and they shouldn’t be treated any different because of the way that one may speak. She made a call to action for all Asian Americans to being to start writing to have more representation for Asian Americans. Throughout her essays she uses appeals to ethos and pathos to call attention the still ongoing issue of language and cultural discrimination. Her choice of dialogue and uses of the appeals to Ethos and Pathos help her to create an argument for her intended audience of non-Standard English speakers and Asian Americans to understand and agree with her position on language bias.

Amy Tang starts off her essay by making her audience comfortable with her by saying “I am not a scholar of English or literature.” She’s already using appeals to ethos to make herself credible from the very beginning. She attempts to make her audience feel like they could trust her and easily relate to her because even though her writings are very popular, she’s just like them. This allows the reader or audience to be more open to her ideas on language. Continuing on, throughout the essay she continues to use ethos to make herself culturally credible by being in touch with her background. Ms. Tang expresses her change in language in the fourth paragraph of her essay makes her validated to speak on the topic of changes in language. She illustrated a time when she was talking to her husband and mom about the changes in prices on an item and she said “Not waste money that way” instead of “I will not waste my money on that” or “This is a waste of money” and Ms. Tang realized her changes in language are dependent on her audience. Which is relatable to many people who are apart of cultures other than Asian American culture. Her choice of dialogue in this part of the text correlates with ethos, you can picture her Asian accent when saying “Not waste money that way” because that her cultures way of speaking but many will view or describe this as broken.

After speaking about her personal experiences with transitions in her different types of English, she speaks on her mother’s experience as a completely non-Standard English speaker and her experience as the child of a non-Standard English speaker in an American society. She starts off by speaking on a situation with a stockbroker. While her mom is shouting in the background “Why he don’t send me check, already two weeks late. So mad he lie to me, losing me money.” While embarrassed, as she expresses, she says to the stockbroker, “Yes, I’m getting rather concerned. You had agreed to send the check two weeks ago, but it hasn’t arrived.” Here in this part of Amy Tang’s essay, you can see the difference in speech between Ms. Tang and her mother. Amy Tang catches herself describing her mother’s English as broken and she comes to the realization that there’s nothing to fix about her language because she’s expressing the same ideas as one in standard English would say, just in a different way. This use of dialogue makes the expressed issues seem more credible and crates a sense of empathy in the reader because sadly her daughter has to take her phone calls for her due to her not speaking perfect English or the lack of understanding a typical American has. Amy Tang continues on the idea of lack of understanding most Standard English-speaking Americans have to then bring up another situation that occurred. She describes one of her mother’s experiences at the hospital with her mom. Basically, her mother was mistreated while having a brain tumor. Her situation wasn’t looked at as important because of the way her mother spoke English. Amy Tangs description of the situation made the issue appeal to ethos even more. It personally made me, the reader, have more compassion for the mother because it is sad that her not speaking perfect Standard English results in discrimination especially under serious circumstances. From the author using ethos in her essay, she evokes sadness, making the reader view the circumstances behind language bias. This approach made her argument a more serious issue than most people would think of. This also made many aware of an issue not often spoken about, language discrimination.

To further show the importance of language bias and discrimination, I decided to analyze a text of similar nature entitled “Tongue- Tied” by Maxine Kong Kingston. Ms. Kingston a Chinese American writer who wrote about her personal experiences in American schooling. She starts off by telling a short tale of why her mother “cut her tongue” which figuratively meant her mother made sure she was an English speaker and not a “tongue tied” individual such as her mother and the rest of her family. She continues on by speaking of her experiences in a school setting as she grew up. She describes it as silent. She basically says that she didn’t like speaking up in class due to the way she spoke with her accent. She said in the text that, “It spoils my day with self-disgust when I hear my broken voice come skittering out into the open. Many of the other Chinese kids in her school felt the same in a way, they all decided to be silent. Ms. Kingston’s use of words as in “self-disgust” “broken” “skittering” can be relative to pathos. Her description of her childhood evokes sad emotions in the reader. She continues to speak of her experience in the American school system and goes deeper into how she was treated differently because of her silence. She was picked on and beat up by some kids, even ones of her culture, and she was protected and accepted by black kids in her school. Later in this excerpt, she speaks of the transition between American schooling and Chinese schooling. She was more comfortable in Chinese school and she found her voice, whereas the American kids were silent due to their differences. This part especially relates to ethos because, of course, its speaking of culture and she validated to speak on this topic because she experienced the American lifestyle and lived in the Chinese culture. She shows a shift in tone from being down about being an outcast in American student to feeling light and free in the Chinese school.

This excerpt wasn’t necessary “broken English” but it was more of the way she pronounced her words and her silence that made her less important in American society, particularly American learning systems and it should never be that way. By describing her mother’s beliefs in being “tongue tied” as a younger child she makes herself more credible because she’s describing a cultural belief that is common in a way in Chinese culture. Also, from describing her experiences in both learning environments, Chinese and American, she more credible on speaking on this issue of language bias. Both Amy Tang and Maxine Kong Kingston make their argument even more powerful by using appeals to ethos and pathos and using so many other rhetorical devices such as tone and dialogue.

Overall, both authors create the argument of language bias in similar but different ways. Rhetorical devices are used in these two texts to make their argument more effective to the audience and make themselves more credible. From reading essays like these two I’ve learned a lot about language bias and how frequent it is in American society. That one thing I wasn’t aware of before. But the use of rhetorical devices by both authors has made me and many reader turn the idea of “broken English” to “cultural English”.