"Mother Tongue"

In "Mother Tongue", the author Amy Tan writes about her mothers broken English and the impact that it has had on her as a writer and as a person and how her mothers broken English has been perceived by others. The rhetorical triangle asks who the author is, who the audience is and what the purpose of the text is. In "Mother Tongue", Tan is writing to her mother but I also feel she is addressing  anyone who has emigrant parents. The purpose of Tans essay is to show that  even though one may speak "broken" English, it does not give people the right to look down upon that person or discriminate against them. Even though her mother speaks broke English, she is a very smart and professional woman but has struggled to gain respect because of how she speaks. Tan also wants to show that you can speak many different types of English with different audiences, just as you speak different to a group of adults then you do with your friends.