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Book Review of Mother Tongue
Being an English Second Language speaker, there are times when my worlds collide.
This is especially when my audience is composed of people who understand my native language
and English, and those who are native English speakers. Anyone conversant with my native
language and English language will normally develop a unique kind of English, which I am
fluent in. I also have some adequate Masterly in the English Language to the level of a Native
speaker. Just like Amy Tan in Mother Tongue, where she becomes curious upon realizing that
the kind of English she has accustomed to and adapted for the particular audience is dissimilar to
the one she applies while conversing with her mother. I engender some strange feeling when
using one of my type of English in front of people who haven’t previously heard me speaking in
such a manner.
There are some notable examples of “Family talk” given by Tan in Mother Tongue. The
key among them are: while walking down the street in the company of her mother and husband,
she says “Not waste money that way”, this is while talking about the price of new and used
furniture. And also during the instant when she quotes her mother in a conversation they had
about the political gangster in Shanghai, who coincidentally shares the same surname with her
mother’s family, and had emerged as a very powerful and wealthy gangster. In the “Broken” or
“Fractured” English, that bears the true hallmarks of their “Family talk,” Tan’s mother points out
that the wealthy gangster had honored the wedding invitation as a sign of paying respect to her
family, which is in line with the Chinese Culture. The kind of “Family talk” or “Friends talk” I
normally use in my closest relationship is one marred with the translations from my first
language and a fair blend of the two languages.
The people’s perception of Tan’s mother based on her language in Mother Tongue is a
limited one. It’s anchored in the belief that her “Broken” or “Fractured” English reflects on the
quality of what she has in mind. Tan also seems to subscribe to the idea that a logical expression
is a manifestation of logical reasoning. My perception of people who speak other “Englishes” is
that they’re neither native English speakers nor people with high intelligent quotient (IQ). The
latter mostly applies in situations where the speaker of the types of English is a native English
speaker.
Tan feels that her mother’s “English” has had an effect on her results in the IQ tests and
the SAT. She hasn’t achieved some equally impressive results as she did in math. Tan’s mother
has also had poor services delivered to her due to her “English.” She points out her mother’s
incident with stockbroker and the hospital staff, where her mother laments about the poor
customer treatment due to her “English” as examples of how such expressions affect normal life.
Tan’s intervention in both cases, where she communicates in perfect English is able to resolve
the challenges encountered by her mother. I have also experienced a similar situation, where a
customer service agent in a particular firm wouldn’t attend to me satisfactorily based on my
English language expression, which was a blend of English and my native language.
Standardized testing does not strive to reveal the actual ability of a particular candidate.
The kind of English and thinking required on standardized English tests is one that is geared
towards revealing the candidate’s intent, passion, imagery, and nature of thoughts.
