Free Essay On Mother Tongue

Almost immediately I realized that the speaker is not a native English speaker. It is the first time I have heard anyone refer to types of English as “Englishes.” The speaker stood up to make a speech and was not as confident as she usually is, despite the fact that she has given this speech several times before. This time her mother is in the audience and she realizes that she is using the type of English that her mother has never heard her use. “My mother was in the room. And itt was perhaps the first time she had heard me give a lengthy speech, using the kind of English I have never used with her.” The speaker obviously grew up in America and she has no trouble speaking grammatically correct; she has trouble remembering when to switch. Its uncanny how non English speakers would always leave out parts of the sentence, sometimes the correct usage of the verb, sometimes, a preposition, a pronoun, or the article. “Du Zong wasn’t look down on him, but didn’t take seriously.” English speakers speak another language their problem is using the correct form of the verb, they do that in English too. The speaker says the English she uses formally is not the English she uses with her mother; it comes so naturally to her, she changes without even thinking; she calls it her intimate language. The speaker attributes her ability to speak two different forms of English to her culture. She is no different from Americans. The only difference is, Americans never switches back, it is basically the same broken language at home and in public. In America we have the habit of making foreigners feel foolish for not speaking the type of English we speak; and when we meet them we immediately starts to speak loudly and slowly, even if they are speaking grammatically correct. Most time foreigners’ English is perfect but as soon as we hear a foreign accent we revert into our condescending language. I do not think that the speaker’s mother is hard to understand but as soon as we meet a foreigner we decide that we are not going to understand them. Not understanding speakers of other language is mostly a mindset among American.
Most times when speakers of other language immigrate to America; they would settle in areas where there are other people of their country and culture. Usually they do not learn English well because they are among their people; motherless, their children generally master the language.
The theme of the story is the difference between the language the speaker uses with her mother and the language she uses in public. The speaker says that she was not an English scholar, in school she was more than average, she managed to maintain Bs in English. She says she gets As in Mathematics. She ends up with two language systems one for her mother and one for the public. She resented her mother because she felt that because of her limited English she was restricting herself too. Her friends understood her mother in different degrees; but it seems her mother is contented with the English she knows. The truth once people find their own people who speak their language, they more often than not do not see any reason to distress themselves with learning the new language of the country in which they reside. That is the reason all across America there are cities with name like Little Havana; Little Haiti, or Little Italy.
There is nothing in the story to suggest that the speaker mother could not learn her new language of her new country. She is a smart woman, “You should know that my mother’s expressive command of English belies how much she actually understands. She reads the Forbes report, listens to Wall Street Week, converse daily with her stockbroker, reads all of Shirley MacLaine’s books,” Whether or not her mother choses to learn English does not make her any less of an intelligent woman she knows how to invest her money and stays abreast with her stockbroker. Her mother has more potential than she, as a child understood. Even though her mother has her calling her stockbroker she is not afraid to take her limited English and face down her stockbroker in his office. It would not be any surprise if the speaker’s mother speaks English grammatically correct when the occasion arises.
In our formative years our parents are the closet to us; and more often than not we adopt to our parents environment including their habits. Mrs. Ton is blamed for everything her daughter’s setbacks in English; but that is just an excuse Mrs. Ton did not attend school in America, therefore her daughter has more exposure. . If she applied herself to her studies as much as she does in Mathematics she could have understood her English better. It does not matter how one’s English is perfect if he or she does not have the talent to write he or she will never make it as a writer. The speaker is not only a talented writer she uses English well, consequently, she could have done better at words relationship and analogy while she was in school. To write well one must have a command of diction.
The writer has just proven all the things I have said about her English. She told herself that children are a product of their environment; nevertheless, they can outgrow their natural habitat. It would definitely seem that Chinese’s children are better mathematicians than most of their counter-parts. And they only excel because they spend time practicing Mathematics. If they took the time to understand English they can outshine their peers also. Like the writer said as she brings her story to a close, because she was defiant, she mastered English. After we have come to certain age we have to take credit for our own actions.
There many speakers of other languages in America, and while their parents maintain their mother language, these children have mastered English. Some of them will only use their former language to speak to their parents; and some of them will not even use the language of their parents when talking to them. Every person who immigrate to another country with a different language should learn that language.