Alejandro Estevez
Prof. Crowe
Freshman Composition
20 October 2020
Cover Letter for Rhetorical Analysis
In my Rhetorical Analysis essay, I focused on Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue”. I decided to keep it straight forward because I wanted to encapsulate some aspects of writing I learned from reading her work. My points I made in my paper agreed with Tan’s argument and the evidence she presented to support her main claim. Also, my audience for my essay was intended to be the academic community (i.e. teachers and students). With that in mind, I tried to keep the tone throughout the essay as serious and I used formal language instead of language I use with my friends. One thing I gained in this essay is a new perspective of analysis. Before I only applied this depth of analysis in literature in previous English classes, I never have really used the same approach towards personal essays or informative essays. Another thing I learned from this assignment is the assumption of all the writer’s actions being deliberate; thus, further supporting their argument or damaging their argument’s validity. Although I am making this process of rhetorical analysis sound easy, I found it especially difficult to dive deeper and escape from surface-level observations and deductions. For example, the irony I found in between English being taught as subjective and then society standardizing it, took a very long time to realize that was probably a key moment she deliberately placed there. Another thing I gained was an appreciation for the writer’s authorship in their writing. Everything is on the page for a reason. It could be something glaringly obvious or something more subliminal, regardless each component is woven together to make a comprehensive masterpiece (at least in Tan’s case).
In terms of the relation of this course, this essay made me dive into rhetoric and all its elements more than I ever have. Since this is my first rhetorical essay, I needed to make sure I understood all the elements of rhetoric and how they are used. In “Mother Tongue” rhetorical concepts like purpose, audience, exigence, evidence, and argument, are used effectively in order to make convincing points to persuade the audience. I also exercised some of the Course Learning Outcomes through completing this assignment. For example, I was able to “Compose texts that integrate my stance with appropriate sources using strategies such as summary, critical analysis, interpretation, synthesis, and argumentation” in this assignment. This was achieved by just writing the essay. This Course Learning Outcome basically outlines my process of creating this paper. I made an argument and used deductions I made from Tan’s essay to support my argument. In addition to Course Learning Outcome #8, I also “Practiced systematic application of citation convention”. Although I did not cite extensively in this paper, I used MLA Citation in one instance throughout my essay. In future essays I plan to dive into the practice of citation more in depth.
Alejandro Estevez
Prof. Crowe
Freshman Composition
20 October 2020
Rhetorical Analysis Essay
“Mother Tongue”, written by Amy Tan, is a personal essay that discusses her childhood living in an immigrant home and she also discusses her mother’s difficulty assimilating to English. As the essay progresses, Tan uses her memories and experiences as evidence, and then she reflects on her experiences in a very analytical retrospective manner. Amy Tan clearly identifies society’s views on the difference between “standardized” English and “broken” English. Her thesis combines this claim and her experiences growing up in a Chinese immigrant household. Amy Tan’s argument is there is no such thing as broken English and English usage does not define intelligence or worthiness of respect. Tan presents an interesting thesis, and her personal experiences are effective in conveying the importance of language usage and its social implications.
In the essay, Tan first presents her accolades, which demonstrates her credibility in formulating her argument. She is an experienced writer/author making “Language a tool of [her] trade” (Tan 1). Although she states that she is not a scholar of English literature, she is a scholar in Linguistics. Thus, she understands the science of language and its structure. Another thing that makes her a qualified source is her understanding of the challenges of assimilating to the “standard” English because she witnessed the difficulties of her mother firsthand. Therefore, the writer’s angle totally dominates this paper. Although this means examples of logical evidence are absent in the paper, the experiences Tan chooses to describe effectively contribute to her main claim.
Tan uses a variety personal experiences to fully support her claim. The exigence that made Tan begin to analyze experiences with her mother is a realization between formal use of English (English used at school or other serious settings) and casual English (English used with family and friends). After realizing this difference, she realizes the larger social implications of language and manifested this through recounting personal experiences that support her argument. For example, she says her mother reads the Forbes report and listens to the Wall Street Week, which clearly demonstrates her ability to understand complex concepts despite her speaking “broken” English. Then in terms of the respect portion of the argument, she uses an emotional appeal through accounting experiences where her mother was being treated as sub-human just for her accent and usage of the language. In almost all of the experiences described her mother is in the position of the victim, making the reader easily sympathetic. For instance, her mother was denied healthcare because she spoke “broken” English. In this experience there is a sense of dehumanization simply because her mother does not meet the standard of “perfect” English. If anyone were to view this event, no one would support this behavior and treatment. In one of Tan’s experiences pertaining to herself, she discusses how the education system teaches English as open ended or subjective. Thus, her argument of broken English being nonexistent is validated through this claim. There’s an irony between how there is a disconnect between how society views English as being black and white/standardized versus the education system (one of the most fundamental influencers of society) treating English as subjective and open ended. The only evidence that is missing is logos (statistics and other means of hard evidence), which is the only weak point in her essay. At the same time, if she included statistics that describe a disconnection between English usage and intelligence, she would be disproving her main argument of how intellect or respect cannot be quantified by language usage. Besides this weak point, the evidence presented to support her argument is extremely strong which, successfully makes her claim convincing to the audience.
The author’s diction strengthens her argument and she strategically uses her evidence to appeal to the audience. The audience of this essay is people who can empathize/sympathize in the situations Tan describes or people who do believe that the usage of English equates intelligence and worthiness of respect. Tan’s main purpose in writing this essay is to educate people on this common misconception. The writer uses very clear and direct language making the essay very easy to navigate and easily understood. She claims that her writing reflects the English she grew up with. This not only makes this essay more personal than it already is, it also makes a statement in how effective this “simple” version of English is when explaining dense subjects. Thus, indirectly, Tan’s diction in writing this essay supports her argument.
The genre and publication of the essay influences the structure, content, and argument of “Mother Tongue”. The essay was published under the Threepenny Review, which is a magazine that includes memoirs, poetry, and essays. Amy Tan’s personal essay fits into this publication because all these genres are rather personal and somewhat based on subjective information. In the original publication of this essay the title was “Under Western Eyes”, which further represents the difficulty of assimilation into a society that judges someone’s worth based on language usage. It also represents a sense of alienation because the title identifies two differences, geographical difference (resulting in a difference in cultures) and a difference in metaphorical positioning in society (the word “under” suggests they are treated as a lower than other Americans).
Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” provides a clear picture of the difficulties of assimilating to American standards from the perspective of an immigrant household. From retrospective analysis and reflection on past experiences, she formulates a thesis that states that someone’s English usage does not define their intellect or worthiness of respect, and broken English is nonexistent. With Tan’s understanding of English Linguistics combined with her personal accounts, she successfully supports her argument through ethos and pathos. Although there is not any logical evidence, the argument remains strong through other means of support, such as diction and the original publication of the essay.
