Audrey RouseEnglish 250Section RKFebruary 10, 2013

Textual Rhetorical Analysis

In Amy Tan’s essay, Mother Tongue, Tan tries to convince readers of the fact

that the validity and value of a person’s ideas and intents do not change due to the

way they speak, whether they use “perfect” or “broken” English. Tan also attempts

to explain that her “mother’s expressive command of English belies how much she

actually understands.”(283) She uses many examples to take readers into her life

experiences to discover this truth.

Amy Tan writes her essay in a very informal and anecdotal tone. She uses

first person throughout the entire essay and she adds many personal experiences to

increase the validity of her argument and to show that the topic has a very

important place in her life. The examples she uses also make her tone reflective. For

example, when she tells a story of her mother having trouble with the hospital

because of her English, Tan quotes her mother’s words “Why he not send me check,

already two weeks late. So mad he lie to me, losing me money.”(284) She does this

to reflect on how the encounter played out and to show how her mother’s English

affected the situation. Tan is also emotional and somewhat angry at certain points of

her essay and that makes the essay relatable and shows her passion for her topic.

This is displayed in the story of her mother’s trouble with the doctors but also when

she shares about her teachers “steering [her] away from writing and into math and

science.”(Tan 285) The reflective, emotional, and informal tones Tan uses suggest

1

Audrey RouseEnglish 250Section RKFebruary 10, 2013that she is writing the essay for herself, to reflect the same way as writing in a

journal, as well as to the educated people she is trying to convince.

To start off her essay, Tan uses disclaimers such as, “ I am not a scholar of

English or literature…I am a writer.”(282) By doing this, Tan prepares readers for a

more personal essay and shares her qualifications for writing about language. She

continues the essay with many stories about how her use of English came to her

conscience. She uses these stories to validate her claims about how spoken English

varies and to explain what impacts those variations had in her life. She uses of her

mother’s “broken” English to emphasize the differences in language uses. Tan also

provides examples of her use of “perfect” English in the story about her mother and

the doctors, and her lecture near the beginning. This shows that although she sees

the value of her mother’s English and even uses it at home, she felt the importance

of being able to use “perfect” English for her work as a writer. Throughout her

essay, Tan tends to wander, touching on many different instances where she recalls

her use of language affecting her life; this makes the essay slightly resemble a

journal entry. Tan ends the essay by telling about going back to her roots and seeing

the beauty of her mother’s English; at the end she tells about trying to capture that

English in her writing and says, “I knew I had succeeded where it counted when my

mother finished reading my book and gave me her verdict: ‘so easy to read.’”(286)

Amy Tan wrote Mother Tongue to display and convince readers of the value

of a person’s ideas no matter how “perfect” their English is. Although she does not

explicitly say it, Tan is also trying to convey the importance of staying true to

2

Audrey RouseEnglish 250Section RKFebruary 10, 2013yourself and going back to your roots even if the world doesn’t see things the same

way or even looks down upon it. Tan concludes that it is right for her mother’s ideas

to be expressed in the way she speaks English because it is more authentic, raw, and

true to her and carries so much more meaning than if she were to speak with

“perfect” English.

MLA Citation:

Tan, Amy. "Mother Tongue." Silverman, Jonathan, and Dean Rader. The World Is a

Text: Writing, Reading and Thinking about Visual and Popular Culture. 4th ed. Upper

Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2008. 282-86. Print.

3

Audrey RouseEnglish 250Section RKFebruary 10, 2013Name ____________________

Excellent Good Fair Needs Work

ContextPosition: Thoughtful and perceptive definition of topic; scope is appropriate to analysis (not just summary of essay)

x

Purpose: Analyzes the major strategies used by writer.

x

SubstanceDevelopment: complete, relevant, and substantial; uses carefully chosen specific quotations from text

x

Sources: appropriate for topic and accurately cited xOrganizationFocus: focuses on analysis, no personal experience xThesis: a focused thesis that clearly states argument xIntroduction and Conclusion: Overview of organization at beginning; conclusion sums key points

x

Relationship: relationship of ideas clear; coherent; transitional devices used to guide reader

x

Unity: all paragraphs support thesis; paragraphs structured around controlling ideas and fully developed; no tangents

x

Sequence: material presented in a logical order xStyleStyle: clear and concise writing xSentence structure: sentences varied; subordination and coordination used effectively

x

Vocabulary: precise, vivid and appropriate word choice

x

Conventions/Correctness Free from Sentence-level errors Free from Word-level errors

x

DeliveryWorks Cited: typed Works Cited page attached xFormatting: 1” margins; Times or Times New Roman 12 point font; MLA header; page numbers on pages

x

___x__Turned in draft & worked in conference.Comments: The best thing about this is the enthusiasm it displays for the subject. You’ve done good close reading & pick out a key details from Tan’s essay. That about exhausts the good news, however. You have serious problems of organization, damaging both individual ¶s & the overall sequence of ideas. Your 2nd ¶, for instance, has at least two distinct topics, & then your following ¶ seems to be a summary of the whole essay, serving no clear purpose as part of a larger logical argument. That’s why you fall into inaccurate generalities at the end. Plus you lack your required 2nd citation. C+

4