A Comparative Essay on Language PDF

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Finding vs. Losing a Tongue

“Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan is an essay published in 1940’s, whereas “Searching for My Tongue” is a poem written by the poet Sujata Bhatt in 1994. Both texts have the general idea of mother tongue and varieties of languages; however, Tan focuses on finding a mother tongue whereas Bhatt focuses on losing one. In contrast to the poem, Tan’s essay is more concrete and uses structural sentences and paragraphs as a form. Tan’s purpose is to explain using the mother tongue whereas Bhatt’s purpose is to comment on bilingualism. Since they both deal with speaking more than one language, both artists have the same audience of bilingual people, or people who speak more than one language. Since they are two different type of texts, their stylistic features are contrasting with each other. Unlike Tan, Bhatt’s poem is more of an imaginative work and she uses metaphors and similes to create an image in our heads. Both texts start out with a sad mood which shifts throughout both texts, therefore, they have a connection to our feelings. In this analysis, the audience and purpose, content and theme, tone and mood, stylistic devices and structure will be analyzed to show their general idea is similar, but their background texts differs.

Both of the authors of the texts are bilinguals, therefore, their audience and purposes complement each other. Amy Tan is a daughter of two chinese immigrants. This essay was published in the late 1940’s, where there was a lot of immigration from China to USA because of China’s Cultural Revolution. Therefore, the essay is indirectly speaking to the value of immigrants, their culture, language and their heritage. Similarly, Sujata Bhatt is originally from India, and her native language is called Gujarati, which is one of many languages spoken in India. Since she had to spend most of her professional life in various other countries such as Germany, so it is possible that she wrote this poem to express her disappointment in herself for forgetting her native language. However, in her case, the first stanza clearly states that it would be difficult to maintain your mother tongue if you’re forced to use another language. The poem starts with a question asking; “You ask me what I mean by saying I have lost my tongue” (Bhatt). She starts the poem with a question to grab our

attention, but proceeds by using a personal pronoun such as ‘I’. I believe the reason for that shift in pronouns is to tell us about her feelings, or perhaps a story. She asserts her possession of the language by saying “my tongue”. I believe, she is trying to tell us that she is facing acculturation, thus the audience she intended to reach might be people like her. Considering there are a lot of people who face the problem of acculturation because they live in another culture that they’re not familiar with for a long time, it is possible that she might’ve reached her goal of telling people about this issue. In contrast, Amy Tan uses a more concrete and formal language compared to Bhatt since she wrote an assay, not a poem. In her essay, she uses metaphors, similes and anecdotes to impose the idea that there is no right or wrong way to speak english, and that languages put limitations one people who speak a more ‘simple’ or perhaps even ‘broken’ english. The text asserts, “And I had plenty of empirical evidence to support me: the fact that people in department stores, at banks, and at restaurants did not take her seriously, did not give her good service, pretended not to understand her, or even acted as if they did not hear her” (Tan). As this quotation suggests, people were treating Tan’s mother differently because of her limited (broken) english. I believe this made her write her opinion essay, and also to talk about the limitations languages put on people. I believe that the text is aimed at the children of immigrants who talk in a different way at home, and in their social or educational lives. This is possible and even true since she focuses on first trying to use less of a language that she later realises is actually her mother tongue. Since there are a lot of immigrants in the world, it is important to consider that this difference between “simple” and “complex” english might be affecting their children. We can see this situation in the essay Tan wrote, since she talked about the different englishes she talked at home with her parents and the english she spoke with her friends outside her home environment. The tones of these contrasting essays are actually pretty similar since they both start out with a sad and depressing mood, and transform into more positive ones. The essay, written by Amy Tan, starts by her talking about how she’s giving a speech and she worries that her mother might not be understanding the type of ‘complex’ english she is using because she is used to using ‘broken’ english. The essay voices, “I was saying things like, ‘The intersection of memory upon imagination’ and ‘There is an aspect of my fiction that relates to thus-and-thus’–a speech filled with carefully wrought

grammatical phrases, burdened, it suddenly seemed to me, with nominalized forms, past perfect tenses, conditional phrases, all the forms of standard English that I had learned in school and through books, the forms of English I did not use at home with my mother” (Tan). As it can be seen from this excerpt, the tone she is using at the beginning is disappointed. She feels disappointed and guilty because she doesn’t consider the english she is using whilst giving a speech in her mother tongue, and she also worries that her mother is perplexed by it. She later finds her voice by spending time with her mother and using the ‘broken’ english that her mother uses. This leads to her understanding that that broken language is actually her mother tongue. In the anecdotes that describe this situation, she uses the same ‘broken’ language which shows us that there are diction changes. Therefore, the tone shifts from disappointed to prideful because Tan finds her mother tongue. Likewise, we see a ambiguous situation in the poem. The poem starts by asking the reader a question and grabbing their attention. The poem asserts, “I ask you, what would you do, if you had two tongues in your mouth, and lost the first one, the mother tongue, and could not really know the other, the foreign tongue” (Bhatt). This quote shows the disappointment within the poet, Bhatt, with herself about how she couldn’t maintain her mother tongue, thus ‘losing it’. This idea of a ‘foreign’ tongue is introduced to us, which I would infer that it means any language we acquire which is not our own mother tongue. Her sadness, however; later becomes anger in these lines; “And if you lived in a place you had to speak a foreign tongue, your mother tongue would rot, rot and die in your mouth…” (Bhatt). This quote shows how angry she is about losing her mother tongue, and how she is actually innocent because she was forced to speak that ‘foreign language’. Throughout the poem, we see that Bhatt includes a stanza in her native language of gujarati, this imposes an idea that her feelings might shift as well as shows us that there is a diction change. In the last stanza, tone shifts again, but this time from angry to confident. She talks about how her mother tongue is actually always there, and how it’s not possible to lose it. The last three lines asserts; “Everytime I think I’ve forgotten, I think I’ve lost my mother tongue, it blossoms out of my mouth” (Bhatt). The mood shifts throughout the poem as well as the tone. The poem starts with a sad and/or depressed mood when the poet talks about how regretful she is in herself for losing a mother tongue. As she continues, the mood shifts to a more confident and happier mood. The reason for this mood is, I believe, that it’s impossible to lose a

mother tongue. The shift in the mood and tone also has an affect on the reader’s mood since both of them shift throughout texts, of course. The tone shift puts reader into a lighter and relatively happier mood since the emotions are shifting from negative to positive. The atmosphere also changes from negative to positive with these mood changes and it also has an affect on the readers’ shift of mood as well. Since the genres are different, the techniques and literary devices used contrast as well. As it was stated before, Bhatt starts her poem with by asking reader a question. “You ask me what I mean by saying I have lost my tongue” (Bhatt), she asks the reader, and by doing so she successfully grabs our attention. I would infer the reason for the usage of such pronoun is to involve the reader in this narrative she’s about to tell us. The reason she changes her usage of pronouns is to tell us the story. That way, she is creating an atmosphere of empathy and making us think about similar situation we might’ve encountered. In the third stanza specifically, we can see signs of anaphora. Anaphora is a technique that is used to repeat things. “...grows longer, grows moist, grows strong veins…” (Bhatt) this line is an example of anaphora, which further emphasizes that it is not possible to lose a mother tongue. The poet used anaphora to repeat the message she wanted to convey, which is that you can never lose a mother tongue completely. In the second stanza, she changes her language from english to her native language of gujarati is to reinforce the idea that mother tongue is forever. On the other hand, the essay written by Tan uses logos to make her writing and examples of anecdotes more credible. While the usage of logos adds credibility, she also uses pathos to make us sympathize with her mother. Tan asserts, “... and sure enough, the following week there we were in front of this astonished stockbroker, and I was sitting there red-faced and quiet, and my mother, the real Mrs. Tan, was shouting at his boss in her impeccable broken English” (Tan). This quote is an example of irony, since she finds her mother’s broken english ‘impeccable’. The texts type contrast with each other, since Bhatt wrote a poem whereas Tan prefered an essay. Therefore, the structure of the poem includes stanzas. There are three stanzas of which two are in english, and one in gujarati. She creates hypothetical situations in different stanzas to make us more empathetic to her situation. The usage of these stanzas let the mood and tone changes happen throughout the text. The reason that she jumps to her native language and back to english is to create

evidence for her main purpose. Tan, on the other hand, wrote an essay, which she used anecdotes to make the reader sympathize with her mother. Tan asserts, “And my mother was standing in the back whispering loudly, ‘Why he don’t send me check, already two weeks late. So mad he lie to me, losing me money. And then I said in perfect English, ‘Yes, I’m getting rather concerned. You had agreed to send the check two weeks ago, but it hasn’t arrived” (Tan). As this quotation suggests, Tan’s mother has a broken english, and with her usage of anecdotes, she manages the reader to sympathize with her mother because she is having trouble communicating. The contrast between two texts are apparent to the reader’s eyes, but they support the text in a way that the reader can understand the main ideas and purposes through their respective stylistic devices. In conclusion, I believe that the poet, Sujata Bhatt, reached her goal of talking about this important issue which we call acculturation. The title for the poem is significant, since Bhatt is searching for her mother tongue that she thought she had lost. On the other hand the essay written by Amy Tan is divided into paragraphs, but her anecdotes and dialogues flow in a way that compliments and strengthens her main idea. The paragraphs aren’t too lengthy, and there is a constant progression in terms of time. The timeline is organised, as well as the paragraphs. She is contrasting between the broken english and standard english. There is a blend of short and long paragraphs. Longer paragraphs are usually about her anecdotes and memories whereas the shorter ones are straight to the point and fact based. The title relatable to the essay yet it is too vague. However, she is in search of her mother tongue which is the broken english. This is why the title is significant. Likewise, I believe that Tan also reached her goal as she wrote about how she found her mother tongue, and it was the broken english that she spoke growing up. Even though both texts are efficient, I believe Tan’s essay is more efficient than Bhatt’s poem. The fact that Tan gives examples from her childhood related to her family, which I believe creates a more intimate atmosphere between the writer and the reader. I think this is why Tan’s essay conveys its message more to the reader in my opinion.

Word Count: 2239

Bibliography: Home Is Where The Heart Dwells, blogs.harvard.edu/guorui/2008/02/06/mother-tongue-by-amy-tan/.

“Sujata Bhatt.” Poetry Archive, www.poetryarchive.org/poet/sujata-bhatt....