''Mother Tongue'': Further Analysis. He is Du like Du Zong -- but not Tsung-ming Island people. The intended audience of Amy Tan's essay "Mother Tongue" is the people who criticize and judge Tan's mother's version of spoken English. You will need to type our your answers and bring them to class. Mother tongue usually means the language first learned by a person, but for Amy Tan it has a special meaning, limited language which is the language her mother speaks. English. called stockbroker to ask for a check; lost mother's cat scan, called Amy … She said they did not seem to have any sympathy when she told them she was anxious to know the exact diagnosis, since her husband and son had both died of brain tumors. I am a writer. And all the other pairs of words --red, bus, stoplight, boring--just threw up a mass of confusing images, making it impossible for me to sort out something as logical as saying: "A sunset precedes nightfall" is the same as "a chill precedes a fever." Tan feel so deeply about her “mother tongue” because the limited language effects that many people misunderstand her mother. I spend a great deal of my time thinking about the power of language -- the way it can evoke an emotion, a visual image, a complex idea, or a simple truth. Tags: July 18, 2016 July 19, 2016 Emmanuel Mason. I am not a scholar of English or literature. by Becky 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 the child. Amy Tan, "Mother Tongue" | Diagnostic Quiz © 2020 W.W. Norton and Company, Inc. This quiz is incomplete! Why are there few Asian Americans enrolled in creative writing programs? And then I said in perfect English, "Yes, I'm getting rather concerned. Quiz Flashcard. And by that definition, I am someone who has always loved language. Tan.". I was saying things like, "The intersection of memory upon imagination" and "There is an aspect of my fiction that relates to thus-and-thus'--a speech filled with carefully wrought grammatical phrases, burdened, it suddenly seemed to me, with nominalized forms, past perfect tenses, conditional phrases, all the forms of standard English that I had learned in school and through books, the forms of English I did not use at home with my mother. Want to test your knowledge? Whereas, for me at least, the answers on English tests were always a judgment call, a matter of opinion and personal experience. Distribute the Amy Tan's Mother Tongue lesson quiz, ask students to complete independently. And perhaps they also have teachers who are steering them away from writing and into math and science, which is what happened to me. Read Amy Tan's essay "Mother Tongue" then select the best answer for each question. You had agreed to send the check two weeks ago, but it hasn't arrived.". The same was true with word analogies, pairs of words in which you were supposed to find some sort of logical, semantic relationship -- for example, "Sunset is to nightfall as is to ." She reads the Forbes report, listens to Wall Street Week, converses daily with her stockbroker, reads all of Shirley MacLaine's books with ease--all kinds of things I can't begin to understand. Amy Tan talks about the many "Englishes" she speaks, focusing on her mother's broken English interspersed with Chinese. I knew what the tests were asking, but I could not block out of my mind the images already created by the first pair, "sunset is to nightfall"--and I would see a burst of colors against a darkening sky, the moon rising, the lowering of a curtain of stars. I spend a great deal of my time thinking about the power of language—the way it can evoke an emotion, a visual image, a complex idea, or a simple truth. We used a similar routine just five days ago, for a situation that was far less humorous. One time it was a call to her stockbroker in New York. answer choices . Have Fun!! Your quiz results. Mean gives lots of respect. "Mother Tongue" by Amy Tan. Mother Tongue by Amy Tan DRAFT. Sequential Easy First Hard First. Quiz & Worksheet - Amy Tan's Mother Tongue | Study.com Discussion Questions for "Mother Tongue" by Amy Tan 1) What point is Tan making with the example of her mother and the hospital? 0%. ... Q. Amy Tan was born after her parents immigrated to America. And the correct answer always seemed to be the most bland combinations of thoughts, for example, "Even though Tom was shy, Mary thought he was charming:' with the grammatical structure "even though" limiting the correct answer to some sort of semantic opposites, so you wouldn't get answers like, "Even though Tom was foolish, Mary thought he was ridiculous:' Well, according to my mother, there were very few limitations as to what Tom could have been and what Mary might have thought of him. I cannot give you much more than personal opinions on the English language and its variations in this country or others. I am a writer. To play this quiz, please finish editing it. And my mother was standing in the back whispering loudly, "Why he don't send me check, already two weeks late. Edit. This quiz is incomplete! ... Tan accepting her "mother tongue" being labeled "broken" Traveling abroad. The local people call putong, the river east side, he belong to that side local people. Tan, author of "Mother Tongue," explains that her mother's language had the greatest influence on her understanding of English. Try again, you are not a very good reader. Mother Tongue, by Amy Tan . Why your go-to-market strategy should be industry focused; Dec. 1, 2020. And this makes me think that there are other Asian-American students whose English spoken in the home might also be described as "broken" or "limited." Remember to rate this quiz on the next page! My mother was in the room. Now important person, very hard to inviting him. I had to get on the phone and say in an adolescent voice that was not very convincing, "This is Mrs. Mother Tongue by Amy Tan – Key Points and summary. 5 months ago. It is important to understand basic details of any reading to then understand the main idea of the reading. Fortunately, for reasons I won't get into today, I later decided I should envision a reader for the stories I would write. Get an answer for 'I am doing an assignment about the essay "Mother Tongue," but I am having a hard time understanding the claim of the author and the target audience. And I was trying to calm her down, make her be quiet, while telling the stockbroker, "I can't tolerate any more excuses. But to me, my mother's English is perfectly clear, perfectly natural. Here's an example from the first draft of a story that later made its way into The Joy Luck Club, but without this line: "That was my mental quandary in its nascent state." During this conversation, my mother was talking about a political gangster in Shanghai who had the same last name as her family's, Du, and how the gangster in his early years wanted to be adopted by her family, which was rich by comparison. Chinese age I was nineteen.". tests, and the SAT. False. Like others, I have described it to people as 'broken" or "fractured" English. The story focuses on the prejudices of Tan and her mother and the limitations that imperfect English can impose on society and the richness that such English could … Those tests were constructed around items like fill-in-the-blank sentence completion, such as, "Even though Tom was, Mary thought he was --." So I never did well on tests like that. This was understandable. Please enter your Quia username and password. 11th - 12th grade. Du Zong father wasn't look down on him, but didn't take seriously, until that man big like become a mafia. But I wince when I say that. 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