Rhetorical Analysis Essay

(Intended audience: Instructor and English 110 class)

     Learning second languages has been a goal set by immigrants when traveling to different countries worldwide. As part of the English 110 curriculum, we as a whole class have focused on defining rhetorical strategies from various writers who have had trouble speaking other languages when in a particular environment, the United States specifically. Experiencing life in a different place has been difficult for immigrants because of discrimination from the country’s citizens, especially when learning a new language. Regardless of an immigrant’s fluency in their original language and not being the best in the new language, people would judge the immigrants for how they spoke the second language. An American author and writer, Amy Tan, responded to this discrimination in her “Mother Tongue” article. Published in the Threepenny Review in 1990, this article provides readers with a journey of learning English through Amy Tan’s point of view and addresses discriminators of language speaking.

     After summarizing the context of “Mother Tongue” for the class, I will decipher Amy’s argument and support. Amy provides her readers with her experience learning a second language as an immigrant from China. The central concept was that people discriminated against her mother for her imperfect English speaking. Amy argued that discriminators shouldn’t judge a person based on their fluency in learning new languages but instead accept or assist the person in helping understand the language better. In “Mother Tongue,” Amy utilizes a calm tone and dialogue between herself and her family by showcasing her English language point of view, establishing her credibility as a Chinese immigrant and writer, and her love of English.

     As an immigrant, Amy examines various Englishes she used and how they affected her within her environment in an informal manner. To make her English journey understandable to us as a class, she includes her audience using the phrase “…personal opinions on the English language and its variations in this country or others.” During her English talks with people, Amy realized her difference in English when she used perfect English. She discovered her distinction when she said, “The intersection of memory upon imagination.” She implies that her native language affected how she spoke towards her family by addressing her switch. Therefore, a scenario like this can happen among immigrants where people speak differently between families and in public places.

     Amy utilizes emotional appeals to attract the audience to her argument. She contends, “You should know that my mother’s expressive command of English belies how much she understands. She reads the Forbes report and listens to Wall Street Week….” In this section of Amy’s essay, she divulges her mother’s daily activities to portray her mother’s high knowledge capacity regardless of her “imperfect” English. Amy had to assist her mother with her English skills throughout her life by pretending to be her on the phone with different companies to receive the service her mother requested. Amy contributes to her pathos by including another scenario where her mother received her CAT scan at the hospital. However, the hospitality service ignores and disrespectfully blows Tan’s mother off despite her husband’s and son’s brain tumor concerns. The hospital service toward Amy’s mother divulges discrimination because of her improper English. Tan expresses her anger and disappointment, which therefore emphasizes the argument. She engages readers in her shoes, giving them a viewpoint of the rude behavior she endured. Hence, this scenario makes the audience express sympathy and action against the immigrants’ prejudice in our country.

     Amy uses logical reasoning to emphasize her argument further. She distinguishes that most Asians (Chinese specifically) focus more on engineering. She reveals that many teachers turned Asian-Americans away from creative writing to pursue mathematics and science due to their improper English, which happened to Amy herself. Therefore, Amy’s test scores resulted in better grades in math and science than in English. By analyzing this, Tan intends that we, the readers, should consider our actions if we experience a similar phase like this in our lives. Regardless of the high school teachers, Amy never gave up; she continued pursuing to be a writer and successfully graduated college with an English Bachelor’s degree. Tan addressed the issue to highlight Asian Americans pursuing creative writing and improving their English-speaking skills regardless of “fractured” speaking and opposing views.

     Throughout the essay, Amy uses credibility, emotional appeals, and logical reasoning to justify that people’s intelligence should not be defined by how prominent their language speaking is. Tan concludes her story by acknowledging her success in her English journey when her mother gave her decree, “So easy to read,” after finishing her book. Overall, we should acknowledge that it doesn’t matter where you’re from and what society’s standards for languages are. Still, as long as we can enjoy learning and appreciate what we’ve accomplished, we should find it in ourselves that there are many possibilities to happen, especially when our language speaking is imperfect.