...Engl_114_686 January 31, 2014 Home Language In the lecture of Amy Tan, “Mother Tongue” is described as the way in which language develops from location in which we are raised, and unconsciously we adapt our language with each group we socialize with in our lives. Tan describes herself as someone who is “fascinated by language in daily life. There was a specific moment in the text that Tan realizes that she is using different “Englishes” in different social contexts. Tan was giving a speech about her life, writing, and her book "The Joy Luck Club," to a group of scholarly people, but her mother was also present. It was at this time that she realized that her expressions were more academic, using more formal English, a language she had never used with her mother. Along with the lecture, she relates several examples of how her mother’s “Englishes” influenced her throughout her life, and how sometimes it was a barrier to communication. It was for this reason that Amy Tan decided to write a book where the reading level is easy and understandable--for those who like her mother had difficulty with complex English grammar. In many ways, Tan’s mother’s immigration experience was molded by her grasp of the English language. At times, new immigrants are pre-judged due to their language abilities, which can make life even more difficult. As a new immigrant to the US I can relate to many of Tan’s mother’s experiences. Amy Tan gives as an example when she was talking to her mother about...
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...Universidad De Oriente Teacher: Brenda Jiménez Student: Perla Olivares Hernández Subject: English IV Essay: Amazing people…Tony Melendez INTRODUCTION Amazing people? I thought I’d talk about people with weird and fantastic abilities, but then I remembered someone who I went to see like 7 years ago at the World Trade Center. This man who made me feel goose bumps, because he showed me that sometimes we complain a lot about our issues, material needs and even our low self-esteem, and sometimes we can’t see that we have all we need to succeed. Tony was born without arms due to the ravages of a drug prescribed by a doctor's order to his mother during pregnancy. The drug "Thalidomide" should calm the effects of nausea in the first half of pregnancy, but its effects left a terrible result, thousands of children are born with deformities, no arms, no feet or lacking both. As a child, Tony saw his dad play guitar and felt a great desire for it to be playing well, until one day his dad put the guitar on the floor. "Tony," he said, "Go wash your feet." They were washed and sat down to play guitar for the first time. Never let it discourage physical condition, and with much effort and practice, learned to play skillfully with his toes. Amazing People… Tony Melendez. José Antonio Melendez Rodríguez was born on January 9, 1962, in Rivas, Nicaragua, is a Nicaraguan American guitar player, composer, singer, and songwriter who was born without arms. Tony was born without...
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...B Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior” is an article from The Wall Street Journal. The sender Amy Chua, a professor at Yale Law School in USA, is comparing the Chinese upbringing to the Western way of upbringing. Mrs. Chua is trying to explain to the receiver, western parents, that there are pros and cons when you look at the Chinese way of educating children, but she also shows, that it leads to good results. The argumentation, in Mrs. Chua’s article is open. By using the open argumentation is gives Mrs. Chua the chance to show of her own opinion. And thereby reveal a little bit of herself to the reader. “For example, my Western friends who consider themselves strict make their children practice their instruments 30 minutes every day. An hour at most. For a Chinese mother the first hour is the easy part. It’s hours two and three that get tough.” Here Amy is arguing which of the cultures that is the strictest when it comes to the children’s after school activities. Later on in the text she even gives an example of how she makes her own children practice. “Lulu could not do it. We worked on it nonstop for a week, drilling each of her hands separately, over and over.” In this paragraph on page 9, we can see how she is clearly in favor of the Chinese method, which she uses herself. Amy Chua uses all of the known forms of appeal to convince the reader. Mrs. Chua starts out with the logos appeal form. “..there are tons of studies out there...
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...Two Kinds The story “Two Kinds” is written by Amy Tan. The story comes from a collection of short stories called “The Joy Luck Club” with was published the year 1989. The text questions whether a mother should press her child to be something big or whether the child should do the things it wants to do. The story takes place in the United States of America in the 1950s. The perspective in the story is seen from a first person narrator. The family is working class because they cannot afford a piano but they have a TV that not a thing everyone had in the 1950s. The narrator of the text is a girl named Ni Kan. She is nine years old in the start of the text. Her family comes from China but she lives in the USA with her mother and stepfather. In the start of the text Ni Kan´s relationship to her mother is fine because she agrees with her mother. She wants to be famous like her mother wants her to be. She tries a lot of different things like being ballerina girl or an actor. And at the night the mother asks a lot of question to Ni Kan. But one day Ni Kan, has had enough of it and do not want to do those things anymore and thus defy her mother's will. Form that day on the relationship to her mother gets bad. The relationship becomes even worse because Ni Kan still don’t wants to do the stuff her mother wants so her mother force her to play the piano and one day she had to play a concert. The concert when really badly and her mother was very disappointed over Ni Kan. The next...
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...“Two Kinds” by Amy Tan Parents in a perfect world want what is best for their children, and sometimes it can appear selfish as it did in the beginning of “Two Kinds”. Jing Mei’s mother only wanted to push Jing Mei to succeed only because she didn’t want her to have to go through all she had been through in her early years. “America was where all my mother's hopes lay” suggested her mother has already lost everything and was desperately hoping to create a better life in America for Jing Mei. Throughout the story Jing Mei’s mother pushed Jing Mei to be the best she can be and explained to her that there are only two kinds of daughters, “Those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind.” In the first part of the story, Jing Mei’s mother pushes her to become a child prodigy, a genius and famous. Jing Mei has internal conflicts with herself because she only wants to be herself. What she doesn’t realize is she can be herself while becoming the things her mother is trying to push her to be. Since Jing Mei’s mother doesn’t yet know that Jing Mei will soon start to rebel, her mother seems to push harder and harder. With Jing Mei’s mother desperately trying to live up to the “American Dream”, she buys Jing Mei a piano. The piano plays a substantial role in the story. It seems as if the piano represents what her mother wants for Jing Mei. However, Jing Mei does not want these things for herself. Some may think that the mother is trying to live her life through Jing Mei,...
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...language can be dangerous, even fatal. In James Baldwin’s essay, “If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?” Baldwin confronts the topic of “Black Language.” Baldwin states, “Language incontestably, reveals the speaker” (Baldwin, 648). The language one speaks can say a lot about a person. People may speak the same language, but it is always going to be different based off where the speaker comes from, what type of person the speaker is, what the speaker does as their career, and what the speaker has experienced in their life. Baldwin states that his argument has “nothing to do with language itself but with the role of language” (648). Language is key to communication; it allows people to exude their perspective on things. In Amy Tan’s essay, “Mother Tongue,” Tan emphasizes that we speak different languages unconsciously and that we are categorized by the way we speak. I agree with Tan, we speak different languages without being aware at times and this...
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...0 TREASURE ISLAND By Robert Louis Stevenson Publisher’s Notes This eBook is designed, edited and published by PDFBooksWorld and can be accessed & downloaded for personal reading by registered members of PDFBooksWorld at http://www.pdfbooksworld.com. Though the text, illustrations and images used in this book are out of copyright, this unique PDF formatted edition is copyrighted. Readers of this book can share and link to pages of our website through blogs and social networks, however the PDF files downloaded from our website shall not be stored or transmitted in any form for commercial purpose. Disclaimer: This edition is an electronic version of a public domain book, which was originally written many decades ago. Hence contents found in this eBook may not be relevant to the contemporary scenarios. This book shall be read for informative and educational purpose only. This eBook is provided ‘AS-IS’ with no other warranties of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to warranties of merchantability or fitness for any purpose. 1 Contents Treasure Island ............................................................................ 1 Contents .................................................................................... 2 PART ONE ................................................................................... 3 The Old Buccaneer ....................................................................... 3 The Old Sea-dog at the Admiral...
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...“Two Kinds” One of the stories that really stood out to me was the “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan because in the story it was the mother that coming from another country had hopes and dreams and not thinking in what her daughter wanted was determined to make her own hopes come true. As it says in the beginning of the story “My mother believed you could be anything in America” The mother believes that working hard you can be anything you want to be here in America. The mother had very high hopes that her daughter would become successful and had many dreams to make that happen. The narrator uses her mom to portray the “American Dream” theme, because throughout the story her mother wanted her to do many things. For example when her mother put her into beauty training school and at first she liked it but after also trying other things she realized that she just wanted her parents to accept her. “In all of my imaginings, I was filled with a sense that I would soon become perfect. My mother and father would adore me … I would never feel the need to sulk for anything” I think that many people come to america looking for that “American Dream” dreams of becoming rich and successful. Another thing I got from this story is how all those dreams the mother had affected the relationship with her mother. The narrator's mother only wanted her daughter to be successful in life, but by doing that she was starting problems with her daughter, The mom did not realize how her daughter really felt. “ after...
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...It is known that a mother would do anything within her power to protect her child. It is exceptionally difficult when the mother is what the child needs protection from.In the exerpt “The Violin” by Amy Chua and “Jing-Mei Woo: Two Kinds” by Amy Tan both portray mother-daughter relationships “the chinese way”. In “The Violin”, by Amy Chua, also from the point of view of Amy Chua, she is stressing to perfect her daughter’s every move.”I’m not thinking anything,”’ I said indignantly. Actually, I’d been thinking that Lulu’s right elbow was too high, that her dynamics were all wrong, and that she needed to shape her phases better (Chua 47-48).” Amy Chua was presented on the fact that she could not perfect Lulu and Lulu would have to figure it out...
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...Antonio Ochoa 07 June 2016 Stephanie Denny English 1102 “A Secret Sorrow” and “A Sorrowful Women” Question #1 In “A Secret Sorrow” and in “A Sorrowful Women” the two main women of the stories share different attitudes toward family life. In "A Secret Sorrow" the main woman has a certain idea of family. The woman wants to be the stereotypical housewife. However, she is unable too. She hides a secret from her significant other. This secret would make her unable to portray the role of the perfect housewife. Her secret would be her inability to bear children. As she stated "because I can't give you children!... I can't pregnant!... can't have babies!" (pg. 30). This made her believe she was not good enough for her fiancé, she would reveal her secret after to him. In contrast, the women in “A Sorrowful Women” the woman doesn't want to go along with her role in the family and wishes to relieve herself from this position. The difference shows that not everyone women believe in the typical role of a woman. Question #2 In "A Secret Sorrow" and "A Sorrowful Women" the two woman have a different meaning for marriage. In "A Secret Sorrow" the woman sees marriage as a part of life. Marriage and have a family brings life to her and makes her happy. She wishes this happiness for her fiancé, but she believes she is unable to do so, “you could marry someone else and have children of your own” (pg. 32). In “A Sorrowful Women” the woman she finds marriage to be the enemy. To her, marriage is...
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...Underneath that desperate and playful girl is a helpful and challenging girl. That girl is Julie Baker. She loves to help others , especially Bryce Loski. During the book, Juli faces some tough times , like when they cut down the sycamore tree or when her dog Champ died. This shows that Juli Baker has a growth mindset. In the book, Juli has a growth mindset. When she was waiting for the last two eggs to hatch that took a long time, she was told to leave them alone, she said,” The last two took forever, but it worked out pretty great because they hatched out during the fair that night,”(Van Draanen,71). This shows that Juli has a growth mindset because she...
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...Amy Tan's Two Kinds uncovers clashing qualities. The mother-little girl relationship goes through the entire story. Clashes happen attributable to disparate conclusions about distinguishing proof. As a Chinese settler in America, Ni Kan's mom puts her American dream on the shoulder of her little girl. Be that as it may, as an American conceived youngster, Ni Kan would not like to experience the desires of her mom. This paper will look at what the title "two sorts" infers from every other points of outlook. "Just two sorts of petite girls the individuals who are faithful and the individuals who take after their own particular personality! One and only sort of little girl can live in this house. Subservient little girl! "The queue clarifies...
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...When Our Hair is White – Shanghai Girls Sisterhood is an extremely strong bond that is very difficult to break. Sisters face challenges through their lives and still manage to stay together and help one another through everything that comes their way. Pearl and May have a strong sisterly bond. They continue to do things for one another in order to keep each other safe, ignoring the difficulty and struggle it may come along with. Throughout their whole journey, Pearl and May were never split apart. The presence of fear can cause a person to fight or flight. It is an instant reaction when a person feels threatened. When the city of Shanghai is bombed by a Japanese aircraft, Pearl’s first thought is of May, her younger sister. “My immediate thought is for May. I have to find her. I stumble across a couple of mangled bodies. Their clothes have been ripped, shredded and bloodied” “…Severed arms and legs litter the street” (See 51). Pearl is not startled by the fact that her city has just been bombed, or by the gruesome sight of the injured bodies surrounding her, all she is focussed on is finding May and making sure she is safe. Pearl is being protective of her younger sister, showing that she cares about May very much. The sisterly bond that Pearl shares with May is what encourages her to search through thousands of bodies to find her, because she could not bear the thought of losing her sister. “I run forward and find my sister. She’s partially buried in plaster and...
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...Regionalism Phaedra Rosengarth ENG302 November 29, 2010 Judith Glass Regionalism Literature which highlights a specific geographical setting and the history, manners, and folkways of the area in order to shape the lives of the characters is known as regionalism. The foothills and central coast regions of California are described in detail in the stories, “The Outcasts of Poker Flat,” by Bret Harte and “The Joy Luck Club,” by Amy Tan, and the poem, “The Purse Seine,” by Robinson Jeffers. “The Outcasts of Poker Flat” by Bret Harte is set approximately halfway between the mining camps of Poker Flat and Sandy Bar, located in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas, during the California Gold Rush in November 1850. The main characters are the Duchess, a prostitute; John Oakhurst, a gambler; Mother Shipton, a madam (who owns the prostitute Duchess); Tom Simson, a very innocent young man; Uncle Billy, a thief and drunk; and Piney Woods, who is Tom Simson’s bride-to-be. The best description of the original camp site is “a wooded amphitheatre, surrounded on three sides by precipitous cliffs of naked granite, sloped gently toward the crest of another precipice that overlooked the valley” (Perkins and Perkins, 2009, p. 1179). This shows how rugged and steep the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California are. The inhabitants of Poker Flat hope to improve the town by banishing a group of undesirables: expert gambler John Oakhurst; a prostitute known as Duchess; her madam, Mother Shipton;...
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...“Two Kinds”, By Amy Tan In “Two Kinds” (Tan, 206) Suyuan; mother, and June Mei; daughter are mother and daughter who struggle to find a common ground on many things. Suyuan is a Chinese immigrant from China. Suyuan arrived in America after losing everything. This includes, “mother, father, family home, first husband, and two twin daughters”. (Tan, 206) Even after all that was lost, she knew her decision to go to America was the right one. She now has a new life, a new husband, and a new daughter; June Mei. Suyuan has high expectations of her daughter. She had such a fascination with young white girls in film that she would try and force that image onto her daughter. Unfortunately, the results left her daughter looking like a “Negro Chinese” (Tan, 206) With all of the emulating forced on her daughter; the strive to be exceptional, June Mei didn’t want to be that. She just wanted to be normal. When her mother put her in piano classes, June did her best to not be good at it. June Mei didn’t want to be genius. She felt that her mother didn’t like her the way she was. Suyuan became so angry that she slapped June Mei. She accused her daughter of being ungrateful. I don’t think June Mei understood all that was sacrificed by her mother so that she could live a live with plenty of opportunity. “Two Kinds” for Suyuan meant, “Two kinds of daughters’, she said, “Those who are obedient, and those who follow their own mind”. (Tan, 211) Suyuan only wanted one kind of...
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