- Published: December 14, 2021
- Updated: December 14, 2021
- University / College: University of Strathclyde
- Level: Secondary School
- Language: English
- Downloads: 23
no. The Mother Tongue The expectation of the society made the and the mother to change the use of language to adapt to their different needs in life. According to the writer, her mother had imperfect or broken English language, a fact that affected her mother’s social life. For instance, she note that her mother was never taken seriously in numerous situations she should have been taken serious prompting to her receiving poor services. For instance, the writer notes that at the age of 15, her mother used her to get right quality or desired services from both the hospital and stockbroker among other places (Tan 24). In these cases, the mother asked the writer to communicate to these service providers pretending to be her. When she did pretend, they noted that there were changes in the service delivery to the mother. Therefore, according to the writer, the quality of the language used in their society determined the level of seriousness and commitment that the society would perceive the speaker; hence, they have to be changing language to adapt to their various needs.
Additionally, the writer used impacted language to interact with the family especially her mother. This is to enable free and effective communication among themselves. The writer learned of her mother’s inability to speak perfect English when she was still very young, a fact that used to frustrate her a lot (Tan 22). However, she learned that she could not change; thus, she had to leave by it. Later she learned that the language of her mother was dictated by where she grew. In other words, he mother translates her speech directly from Chinese language perception to English language. Therefore, to conform into the new linguistic society, they had to change the language depending on the need to adapt to the new societal cultural requirements.
Work Cited
Tan Army. Mother Tongue. New York: Avon Books, 1990. Print.