"The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.

" (Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus

logigo-philosphicus, 1922). In Amy Tan's essay 'Mother Tongue', we see how the language we
use growing up impacts our lives. She sheds light on themes of shame, education and living in
two worlds. Amy Tan is a Chinese American writer and novelist known for her first novel 'The
Joy Luck Club', which talks about Chinese mothers' relationship with their Chinese-American
daughters. This essay will document Tan's intimate connection with the English language and her
complex relationship with her mother. It will further analyze how Tan has effectively built this
case and presented the ideas of language disparities and cultural stereotypes.

One of the central themes of Mother Tongue is the different forms of English one uses in one's
daily life. The kind of English one learns at school is not the kind they will converse with at
home. She reflects on not only her relationship with the language but also on her mother. In the
text, Tan uses inversion, a literary device where two contradicting ideas are put together in the
same way Tan's love for her mother and embarrassment towards her mother's English coexist;
She tells us that her mother spoke "broken English" and how society did not take her seriously.
At this point in the text, Tan's tone of writing is remorseful as she confesses she felt ashamed of
her mother's English. Tan analyzes how society judges one on the basis of how one speaks the
language and how the presumptions believe one's intellect to be. She also mentions the
difficulties one faces in their knowledge of the language. People treated Tan and her mother
differently because she spoke better English than her mother; "And I had plenty of empirical
evidence to support me: the fact that people in department stores, at banks, and restaurants did
not take her seriously, did not give her good service, pretended not to understand her, or even
acted as if they did not hear her". After reading her article, I have thought about how many
factors like location, education and a summation of other factors lead to one's knowledge of the
language. She uses devices such as anecdotes and oxymorons to reflect on the guilt and
embarrassment she felt of her mother's broken English. The use of ethos, pathos, and logos also
explains that even if one doesn't know a language, it won't limit one from every opportunity that
comes about in one's life. She also states "I know this for a fact, because when I was growing up,
my mother's 'limited' English limited my perception of her." the quality of language one speaks
might determine one's intelligence level as in her mother's case she says that it changed the
perception of her mother. Somewhere one's worth in society is determined by the kind of English
one speaks.

Additionally, Tan details the issues surrounding bilingualism. After reading the essay, she is
found to be stuck between two worlds - one world where she has to talk in simple and
understandable English with her mother and the other world where she has to converse in formal
English; she says "- a speech filled with carefully wrought grammatical phrases, burdened". An
issue Tan poses is bilingualism and how it is considered a problem in western countries. She
described her mother's language as vivid and full of imagery, the kind of English that helped in
expanding her creative horizons. The only purpose of language is to assist in communication, yet
the world judges one another along the lines of language disparities. The tone of her writing
changes from a negative connotation, almost as if she was frustrated from her past, to a positive
attitude where she admits her mother's language helped her formulate ideas, improved her self
expression and made her a good writer.

Tan also shed light on subtle racism and stereotypes that she faces as an Asian American living
in the US. She highlights the obstacles of immigrants in western countries, where numerous
irrelevant stereotypes already burden them. Amy tells her, she was a rebel in nature, so she
overcame the assumptions made about her just because she is of Chinese descent. She asks, "why
there are not more Asian Americans represented in American literature? Why are there few
Asian Americans enrolled in creative writing programs? Why do so many Chinese students go
into engineering!" questioning society why since one's birth, one is put into a box of high
expectations just like Tan who was assumed to pursue Mathematics or a field in science instead
she chose to become a writer. The students are sorted into these careers based on their race and
language. At this point, Tan's tone of writing has angst, and in some way, she is mad at the world
for its unwritten rules, and she wonders but doesn't have the answers to these rules.

The text is so powerful that it made me introspect, and I could relate with Amy on multiple
levels. I come from India, after the Britishers colonized, anyone who knew English was
automatically considered well educated, of a good background and superior. English was viewed
with class, and it could decide the kind of service you will get, much like when the author
recounted this in her text.. Along with the obsession with English, the mother tongue, which
wraps stories and cultures, gets lost in the back. I am a Punjabi, growing up, my parents talked to
me in Hindi and English so I wouldn't feel any different in school, but now, as an adult, I am
trying to learn my mother tongue again to fill that void somewhere.