Does language create barriers between people? Amy Tan, an author and a graduate with a B. A in English and linguistics, and an M.A linguistics, wrote a book called “Mother Tongue”, published in 1990, the purpose of that text was to show how hard it was to be raised by a parent that has poor spoken English. Her text was able to show that languages do create barriers between people by using her past experiences, tones, and her own thoughts

In Mother’s Tongue, Amy Tan uses a narrative approach to describe her experience of having a relationship with a mother with broken English. She cuts her text into three parts based on her experiences. She first introduced her relationship with her mother.  She explain and gave  examples of her mother’s broken English. Then she talks about how she was affected by her mother’s English, how she had to help her mother because her English was so broken, she had to talk for her mother. Then at the end of her narrative, she talked about how she incorporated how her Mom’s broken English gave her ideas or options in writing and being an author.

Her relationship with her mom was special because she had to use broken English to communicate with her. Shown multiple times throughout the text she changed up how she spoke English, so her mother could understand. In paragraph 4 of “Mother Tongue” it says “ I was walking down the street with my mother, and I again found myself conscious of the English I was using, the English  I do use with her. We were talking about the price of new and used furniture and I heard myself saying this: “Don’t waste money that way.” Citing this evidence from text showed how she was able to switch from proper English to broken English for her mom to understand her. Not wasting money that way, wasn’t the proper way of saying it, but growing up talking with her mom that became their own language which both were able to understand each other.

Amy Tan talked about how her mother’s broken English affected her and gave an example of helping her mom because she couldn’t have a conversation in English. Amy Tan gave in thoughts and ideas of why she said her mom had broken English and that it seemed wrong. Then she talked about how because of her mom’s English she thought of her mom less and that she was ashamed of her. In paragraph 8 it says “ I believed that her English reflected the quality of what she had to say.” She gave her mom’s words less meaning and saw her mom as a lesser person because she wasn’t good at speaking English.  Some examples of her helping her mom were  in paragraph 9 in “Mother Tongue” it says “ She used to have me call people on the phone to pretend I was her”. She probably felt like she was more superior to her mom because her mom needed for a lot of things and that she was more educated in literature.

Tan describes how her mother’s English was able to affect her education, options ,and career. How her mom’s English limited her possibilities in life, but then was able to use it during writing a book about her mother. In “Mother Tongue” paragraph 21 says “I  began to write stories using all the English I grew up with : the English I spoke to my mother.” This writing helped shape her writing because it was simple to understand but affected. This is very unique because it isn’t academic, it is simple English that anybody can understand.

With a narrative approach in Mother’s Tongue, Amy Tan describes her experience with having a relationship with a mother who speaks broken English. Her text shows that languages do provide barriers between people  showed in her text on how she was affected in multiple ways like and gave examples