The text “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan, Amy talks about how she comes to realize that she speaks a different “English” than her mother does. Amy Tan comes from a Chinese background/ethnicity and her mother is an immigrant. In this text Amy uses Ethos, Pathos, and Logos, to get her thesis across, that her mother has her own “English language.” 

An example of Amy using Ethos is on page 1, when Amy says she is a writer, a English speaker and later says she’s the daughter of an immigrant who speaks broken English, “I am a writer. And by that definition, I am someone who has always loved language. I am fascinated by language in daily life. I spend a great deal of my time thinking about the power of language — the way it can evoke an emotion, a visual image, a complex idea, or a simple truth. Language is the tool of my trade. And I use them all — all the English I grew up with.” Here is ethos that Amy uses to back up her original statement that people have different “languages”, she is not foregin to the English language and is infact a writer. She later says she speaks a different “language” when at work and with her mother. She then states that her mother speaks “broken English.” She comes to a realization during a presentation, her mother was in the crowd and she hadn’t realized she changed her nature of speaking to more professional and unlike how she would speak with her mother.

An example of Amy using Pathos is on page 2,  “My mother had gone to the hospital for an appointment, to find out about a benign brain tumor a CAT scan had revealed a month ago… She said they did not seem to have any sympathy when she told them she was anxious to know the exact diagnosis, since her husband and son had both died of brain tumors… And when the doctor finally called her daughter, me, who spoke in perfect English — lo and behold — we had assurances the CAT scan would be found, promises that a conference call on Monday would be held, and apologies for any suffering my mother had gone through for a most regrettable mistake.” Here Amy is describing a time when her mother went to the hospital to get her diagnosis about her brain tumor, and the hospital brushed her aside because she wasn’t able to speak fluent and correct English and they didn’t want to inconvenience themselves to even bother trying to understand her. After this Amy shows up speaking perfect and fluent English and almost instantaneously the diagnosis papers appear and they apologise for the miss treating of Amy’s mother. 

Amy also said that when she was 15 her mother would tell her what to say, and this one time she was speaking to her stockbroker about her paycheck; “I had to get on the phone and say in an adolescent voice that was not very convincing, “This is Mrs. Tan.” 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.” Amy and her mother even went to New York where they met her mother’s stockbroker and confronted him and his boss about the money.

An example of Amy using Logos is on page 2 final paragraph, “I think my mother’s English almost had an effect on limiting my possibilities in life as well. Sociologists and linguists probably will tell you that a person’s developing language skills are more influenced by peers… especially in immigrant families.” In this quote Amy tells the reader that she too had language speaking problems because she was so use to her mothers imperfect/broken english. She appeals to the logic side of things, when born into an immigrant family in a foregin country it can be harder for the child to learn the proper way to speak the country’s language. 

Lastly towards the end of the reading Amy starts writing drafts for her new book. Her mother even read some of them, Amy’s audience intend for this book was her mother, “I began to write stories using all the Englishes I grew up with: the English I spoke to my mother, which for lack of a better term might be described as “simple”… when my mother finished reading my book and gave me her verdict: “So easy to read.” Amy ends the text with finishing her book for her mother and succeeding in doing so, her mothers end response is all Amy needs to hear for her to know she did a wonderful job writing this book for her mother, her “mother tongue.”