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A Look Into Language - Term Papers

A Look Into Language

As a child of emigrants from China, author Amy Tan knows from experience the problems that face children with a family that uses English as a second language. Tan’s essay “Mother Tongue” is a look into her own cognition of the difference in the English spoken at home with her mother, and the speaking in done in an academic or public environment. “It has always bothered me that I can think of no way to describe it other than ‘broken,’ as if it were damaged and needed to be fixed, as if it lacked a certain wholeness and soundness” (Tan 470). Amy writes that her mother does things that far exceed her English speaking ability, like listen to “Wall Street Week,” or the Forbes Report, all kinds ...

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his family, and even his ancestry. He believes it started when his family was asked to speak only in English at home by the Catholic nuns to help him in school. “While one suffers a diminished sense of private individuality by being assimilated into public society, such assimilation makes possible the achievement of public individuality” (Rodriguez 466). Spanish gave Rodriguez a sense of security, and made him feel closer to his parents than English ever could, and he was left feeling as if that was taken away from him when his family transitioned to speaking English. Rodriguez sheds light onto the inherent strife that faces these families and how having a strong urge to fit into public society shaped who he was. This change was at first seen as a traumatic separation from what he had always known as a child, but later was recognized by Rodriguez as an important part of who he was, and who he has become.
Throughout her childhood Tan felt restricted and embarrassed by her mothers ...

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A Look Into Language. (2011, March 21). Retrieved May 7, 2025, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/A-Look-Into-Language/96462

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PAPER DETAILS

Added: 3/21/2011 03:13:43 PM
Submitted By: sine_345
Category: English
Type: Premium Paper
Words: 656
Pages: 3

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