Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Discussion Answers for 'Mother Tongue' - by Jana & Sheikha

Based on the way someone speak English, if a certain accent is portrayed, this most probably limits certain opportunities in their life and are treated in a different way, just as the mother of Amy Tan. We also see that when they called her daughter – who spoke perfect English – they treated her differently and agreed to find the lost scans that they refused to look for when the mother asked for them to be found.

It was a similar situation to when they were at the hospital, having Amy call in and speak as if she was her mother, this lead to the stockbroker believing that she was an educated woman and that she couldn’t be messed with.

One could say that families have a more influential effect on a person “developing language skills” than peers do. This is so due to the amount of time one is spending with their family as oppose to the amount of time they are spending with their peers.

Tan discusses the SAT and her performance on it to exemplify her familial influences on the English language.

She envisions her mother as the reader of her novels so that she is sure that she doesn't cross any borders in terms of respect towards her mother, etc.

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