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 is giving herself credibility. She is a writer and an incredibly famous one at that. She has held many group presentations where she dives deep into her work of literature and speaks of the historical significance her work portrays. This 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. 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. This is because of their ability to speak standard English. She brings awareness to this issue by giving us moments when her mother experienced oppression and discrimination only because of her ability to speak standard English. Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” is based on the idea that people who cannot speak proper standard English are being discriminated against in many ways and forms. At the end of the day, there is nothing wrong with knowing limited English and not being able to speak in standard English. In her story, she uses Pathos and Ethos to teach about linguistic discrimination by giving us moments when her mother faced oppression and discrimination because of her broken English. 

Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” starts with Amy Tan introducing her mother’s broken English. She then dives into the idea of how some people, like her mother, have only “limited English” meaning that the way they speak is not very formal and hard to understand. This leads to many people being discriminatory towards them and treating them unequally. This introduces the idea that many people judge one another based on their ability to speak standard English. Another interesting point Amy Tan makes in the story is that even though many people cannot understand someone’s broken English. The more they hear the person talk they tend to get used to the way the person speaks and understand them increasingly over time. Amy Tan also talks about how when she was younger, she did not look up to her mother because of her ability to not speak standard English. She 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. On page 2 of the text, she says “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, more people are 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 and makes us feel guilt and remorse to prove her point. When she describes how people were being discriminatory towards her mother based on her ability to speak standard English, she is trying to make the reader feel guilt and remorse so that we can better understand how bad the situation is. It is becoming normal for many places to treat people unfairly just because of the way they speak. This excerpt also makes the reader reflect and feel sympathy since something like this might happen to anyone. 

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. 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 particularly good English, her best English, with 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 to convey the feeling of remorse and guilt since she introduces the idea that many people are discriminated against because of their ability to speak proper standard English. She explains 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 her mother. The hospital didn’t treat her right only because of her broken and extremely limited English. Amy Tan is making the reader feel remorse and guilt which in a way makes the reader understand how there is a lot of prejudice towards many diverse 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 her.” (Tan, 2). In other words, here Amy Tan is giving herself credibility because us knowing that she spoke to many professionals makes us see her capability and experiences that she had. She ensures that the readers knows that she is outstanding when it comes to speaking proper standard English, and she knows how hard it would be if she weren’t able to speak for her mother because she knows of the prejudice people with a broken English face. Always being there and standing up for her mother by the way she can speak proper standard English, she is letting the reader know that she is very grammatical and exceptionally good with words, as a result, 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 impact that linguistic discrimination has on people. She does this by portraying horrible things that her mother faced throughout the story.