Have you ever read a story so captivating that it made you want to read more? In Amy Tan’s Mother tongue she uses Ethos and pathos to convey the idea that many people are discriminated against because of their ability to speak proper standard English, in her story she starts with ethos because she’s giving herself credibility which she is a writer and a very famous one at that since she has held many group presentations where she dives deep into her work of literature and speaks of the historical significance her work portrays which makes her a credible person, she also uses a lot of pathos in her work of literature to bring awareness to the overall idea of linguistic discrimination. Amy Tan’s Mother Tongue is based on the idea that even though people who cannot speak proper standard English are being discriminated against in many different ways and forms, at the end of the day there is nothing wrong when knowing limited English and not being able to speak in standard English. In this work of literature, Amy Tan is also trying to bring awareness to the fact that there are a lot of people who are being treated unfairly because of their ability to speak standard English and how there is a lot of discrimination and inequality when it comes to how these type of people are treated in society. Amy Tan’s Mother Tongue starts with Amy Tan introducing her mother’s broken English and then she dives into the idea of how some people, like her mother, have only “limited English” meaning that the way they speak is very straightforward to the point where it’s not very formal and hard to understand, this leads to many people being discriminatory towards them and treating them unequally, meaning that many people judge one another based on their ability to speak standard English. Another interesting point Amy Tan makes is that even though many people cannot understand someone else’s broken English, she says that someone who hears the person talk in their broken English most of the time will get used to the way the person speaks and start to understand them more and more the more they hear the person speak. Amy Tan also talks about how when she was younger she didn’t look up to her mother because of her ability to not speak standard English, she also describes how she judged her mother and believed that most of the things that came out of her mother’s mouth made no sense and that it was utter nonsense, throughout the text Amy tan introduces some of the occasions her mother has faced discrimination because she cannot speak proper standard English. In Amy Tan’s Mother tongue she uses Pathos to convey the idea that many people are discriminated against because of their ability to speak proper standard English, in page 2 of the text it states “And I had plenty of empirical evidence to support me: the fact that people in department stores, at banks, and at 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” (tan, 2). In other words, Amy Tan is trying to bring awareness and explain how just like her mother there are a ton more people being discriminated against just because of the limitations they have when it comes to how they speak English, in this excerpt Amy Tan conveys Pathos to prove her point because when she says some of the ways people were being discriminatory towards her mother based on her ability to speak standard English she’s trying to make the reader feel guilt and remorse and understand how bad the situation actually is and how it’s normal for many places to treat people unfairly just because of the way they speak, this also makes the reader reflect and feel sympathy because something like this might also be happening to one of their family members or they might have had experienced this themselves. Another part of the story where Amy Tan uses pathos to try to convey her point is when on page 2 she says “My mother had gone to the hospital for an appointment to find out about a benign brain tumor a CAT scan had revealed a month ago. She said She had spoken very good English, her best English, no mistakes. Still, she said, the hospital did not apologize when they said they had lost the CAT scan and she
had come for nothing” (Tan, 2). In other words, Amy Tan in this excerpt is using pathos because her explaining how even with something so serious going on in her mother’s life, the hospital didn’t put the time and effort to make sure everything went smoothly for the mother and didn’t treat her right only because of broken and very limited English, she’s making the reader feel remorse and guilt and in a way this makes the reader understand how serious the situation is and how there is a lot of prejudice towards many different types of people. In Amy Tan’s Mother tongue she uses Ethos to convey the idea that many people are discriminated against because of their ability to speak proper standard English, in page 2 of Amy Tan’s Mother tongue states “My mother has long realized the limitations of her English as well. When I was fifteen, she used to have me call people on the phone to pretend I was she.”(Tan, 2). In other words, here Amy Tan is giving herself credibility because by us knowing that she spoke to many professionals as if she was a person of high standing makes us see her capability and experiences that she had, therefore she ensures that the readers knows that she is very good when it comes to speaking proper standard english, and she knows how hard it would be if she wasn’t able to speak for her mother because she knows many of the prejudice people with broken english face, another idea is that by her explaining all this scenarios of discrimination her mother has faced and her always being there and standing up for her mother by the way she is able to speak proper standard english, she is letting the reader know that she is very grammatical and very good with words therefore it makes her more credible. Overall. in Amy Tan’s Mother tongue she uses Ethos and pathos to convey the idea that many people are discriminated against because of their ability to speak proper standard English, Amy Tan also uses Ethos and Pathos in her work of literature to bring awareness to the overall idea of linguistic discrimination and also to bring awareness to the issue itself.