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Using anecdotes, repetition and pathos, Amy Tan portrays the importance of the English language as it holds a lot of value in society and an individual.
Jordan’s argument is that black people are being silenced and stripped of their identity and a way for them to reclaim it is to use Black English (B.E.). She persuades the audience to accept her argument by using many different rhetorical devices to appeal to ethos, logos and pathos.
In June Jordans more political essay published in 1985, Nobody Means More to me Than You and The Future Life Of Willie Jordan June tries to implicat rhetorical strategies to try to bring two stories together, a class and their journey of Black English and the story of Willie Jordan, in order to try to challenge and bring awareness of the white standards that controls our society today.
Amy is able to create her argument by giving many analogies in her life where her mother has dealt with speaking “broken” English and where Amy has experienced differences due to being an Asian American who wanted to pursue a career in English. Amy does this to give the reader a deeper look at how her experiences were.
The article’s main claim of how one should not be judged based upon how you see or hear someone is well supported because Tan includes personal experiences, the experiences her mother faced and proves to be a great author by appealing to the audience. However, using ethos, pathos, and logs by Amy Tan in “Mother Tongue” she was successful at her attempts to persuade her audience towards her claim.
Tan argues the limitations that an imperfect English can have on the society and its individual. She elaborates this idea, by reflecting on the difficulties her mother faced in America as immigrants for not speaking “perfect” English and how society respond to different people’s usage of English. Throughout the essay, Tan provides specific examples on the many limitations that arose due to her mother’s language.
Amy Tan’s short story “Mother Tongue” is about the different “Englishes” spoken in the homes of the immigrants. Through the use of reminiscence, Tan analyzes how the English spoken by her mother differentiated from hers as well as how it restricted her mother from being understood in the public eye.
Instead of simply providing arguments as to why one should challenge society’s preexisting notions of normal and why people shouldn’t conform to societal norms, Saleem provides anecdotes and statistics that illustrate the negative effects and realities of said norms on society and, most notably, himself.
Jordan successfully evokes emotions of empathy within her targeted audience and persuades them in order to bolster her overall argument and her credibility.
By centering his focus around the personal struggles that an individual comes to face when one’s background and identity is criticized, Saleem begins to build credibility through his successful incorporation of chronological events, his emotional appeal through personal anecdotes, and his acknowledgement of the opposition’s argument.
The argument that Tan makes in the article“Mother Tongue” is that all Englishes are valid and do not determine the state of one’s knowledge. Additionally, the use of different Englishes in stories can evoke the same or even more emotional response. This is explicitly stated in the second paragraph, but then Tan goes into her journey of realizing this and reclaiming her mother tongue throughout the article. She uses the rhetorical appeals of logos, ethos, and pathos to do so and attract the audience.
Tan provides anecdotes throughout the essay to set the tone for her argument. Tan also uses vivid details of her life experiences and her credibility to make her argument appeal to the audiences.
Amy Tan Believes that in America, the English language is looked at as more of a standard than anything else. This means that if someone didn’t speak English that well they weren’t treated with much respect.
Hughes approaches the topic by reflecting what he has seen in his lifetime within his community. Hughes’ argument in “Theme for English B” is that even though events such as slavery and Jim Crow laws, etc. have made an undeniable preconception between African Americans and white Americans, there are still similarities that make both races American which mainly white Americans choose to ignore.
Amy provides personal experiences she dealt with where her own mother was not taken seriously because they heard her broken English but as soon as they heard Amy’s non broken English they apologized and gave Amy what she wanted.
Safwat Saleem, a visual artist, presented his experience with stuttering and being judged due to is accent in his TedTalk Why I keep speaking up, even when people mock my accent, which was aired on February 2016. Throughout his presentation, Saleem argues that “normal” is just a social construct based off of what people know, not what they have yet to learn or recognize around them.
Although there was a large focus on how his accent affected his life, he had also made a point on how there is no such thing as normal.
Tan begins building her credibility by introducing us to the way she views and experiences the usage of language on a daily basis, and how she developed the realization of how so many different forms of English are being used every day without any of us being fully conscious of it, and then further delves into her own experiences from a young age up to her current life on how her viewpoint of the usage of English evolved and changed. The extensive usage of her own personal experiences as the story progresses, and the inclusion of effective usage of Pathos, Logos and Ethos all appeal to her audience, and in the end, strengthen her argument.
June Jordan uses structure, contrast and pathos to highlight the flaws in society when it comes to racism. This helps her draw parallels between the treatment of Black people and the way Black English is perceived.
It is through a balanced use of ethos and pathos that Tan effectively shares her view in a convincing argument in favor of acknowledging all Englishes as the standard, not just one.
In a TedTalk called Why I keep speaking up, even when people mock my accent, Safwat Saleem argues for a different construction on the idea of normalization by appealing to logos, ethos, and pathos.