The article which has been chosen is Mother Tongue by Amy Tan. The purpose of Tan’s article is to emphasize on the fact that English has different standards of interpretation and not just a universal. The author has lived in America for a considerable amount of time, even though she hails from China. She tries to assert the very fact that her identity has enabled her to develop a deeper understanding of language and interpretation, which is also evident through her writing as she does not make use of articulated English in order to convey the meaning, but rather a Standard Language.
There are three key points which have been identified to assess the text by Tan. Firstly, she addresses a great audience, who have different levels of understanding and abilities to read and write English. She is aware of these differences and addresses it through her own experience, along with her mothers. Secondly, the way she communicates or talks to her mother plays a key role to assert Tan’s purpose of writing the article. She emphasizes that the language in which people speak usually is easy as it allows flow of thoughts. The same was in case of the language which was employed for the communication with her mother, even though it lacked flair and articulateness which can be found in English speaking native people, as she encountered while living in America. The third point which has been identified is that she chose to write books which allows people with different levels of abilities to read her books. She caters to a wide range of readers in English, even though her mother tongue is not English. She writes to allow people with low levels of understanding in English to read her articles and understand them most importantly.
The audience of Amy Tan’s Mother tongue is the bilingual families, who face great difficulties to adapt and learn English in order to survive and communicate. English has taken shape of a dominant language, which is why learning it is very essential. She employs her understanding and knowledge of the language and yet tries to keep it simple for her audience depicting their difficulties and challenges to learn and adapt to a language that is English and essentially not their mother tongue. These points shall be addressed in the essay while elaborating tem with details.
Bibliography
Bloom, H. (Ed.). (2014). Amy Tan. Infobase Publishing.
