AP Lang. and Comp.

Mrs. Johnson
Amy Tan Mother Tongue
Direction: Read the essay Mother Tongue by Amy Tan. Respond to these questions on a
separate piece of paper. (TYPED) and submit to your folder. Your response should reflect
thoughtful analysis and thinking about the essay.
Questions on Rhetoric and Style
1. Why does Tan open her essay by stating I am not a scholar of English or literature, then
states in the next par. I am a writer. - a student of language who spends a great deal of
time thinking about the power of language. Why does she include this paragraph?
What is she hoping to achieve by stating this? Which of the appeals are evident in this
paragraph ethos, pathos, or logos (maybe all three)? Explain.
She includes this paragraph in order to tell the readers that though she is not a master of the
English language, she still enjoys language as it is a great part of her life. She includes the
paragraph in order to inform readers how big a part of her life language is and how it has affected
the way she perceives day-to-day things. Ethos is present as she gains credibility through the
statement describing All of the Englishes she grew up with, indicating her experience with
language. Pathos is present as her statement that language has the ability to evoke emotions,
truths, and visual images, allowing her to gain a connection with readers who have had similar
experience when using language to express themselves and their surroundings.
2. At several points in the essay Tan uses anecdotes. How do the anecdotes serve her
purpose?
Why does she include the story of her mother and the
hospital and her mother and the lawyer? How would it
change the essay if she took them out?
Tans anecdotes serve her purpose because they express her experience with language throughout
her childhood, state how language connects with culture, as well as how different forms of
language are perceived in different ways. She includes the story of her mother and the hospital as
well as the story of her mother and the stockbroker to establish that though her mother speaks a
simpler form of English as her native language is Chinese, the words that she expresses still have
passion and a meaning behind them. She uses these examples to establish that just because her
English was fractured, people would limit their perspective of her. When Amys mother asked
the hospital to show her a CAT scan of a brain tumor that was revealed a month ago, the hospital
simply told her that they lost it and didnt even issue an apology. However, when Amy asked, the
hospital found the CAT scan and apologized. Additionally, Amys mother had to use Amy in
order to call a stockbroker and gain information in fear that Amys mothers language would
affect the way the stockbroker would respond. This shows though people limit their perspectives
based upon the form of language a person speaks, the persons words still have meaning and a
goal to accomplish. If Amy took out these examples, it would take away from her ethos by

removing mention of Amys own personal experiences with language, and how she herself could
identify with it.
3. What is Tans strategy behind including a direct quotation from her mother (paragraph six)
rather than paraphrasing what she said? How does it develop her argument?
Tans strategy in including a direct quotation from her mother is to establish the type of language
that Amy has been familiar with her whole life. She uses it to express that though people may
vary in the way that they perceive Amys mothers language, her words still have beauty in the
imagery and clearness they possess, and the meanings that they convey. It helps her develop that
people should not be discriminated simply because of the broken type of language that they
use, and that when looked at closely, these words still have great significance in the way that
they express things.
4. Tan states: But I do think that the language spoken in the family, especially in immigrant
families which are more insular, plays a large role in shaping the language of a child.
Agree/Disagree
I agree because like Amys parents, my parents are also immigrants. As they learned more and
more about how conventional English is spoken, I learned alongside them. I retained the form of
language I learned at home when I started going to school, while also becoming even more
familiarized with how people speak in the standard form of English. However, my parents still
retain parts of their native language in their own English, and like Amy, I at times also use my
own mother tongue in my English when speaking with them as I am accustomed to this manner
in which my family speaks.