Cover Letter

Dear reader, 

       To be honest, when starting in this phase I wasn’t too fond of the rhetorical analysis worksheet but they were good for understanding certain texts. Even though learning in every class what ethos, pathos, and logos meant I did not truly understand it. The only way I was able to truly get to understand them was through the writing of this essay which shows my thoughts and how I’ve felt Amy thought and felt during her essay.

          When writing this essay I had to go out of my way to find an easier way to understand ethos, pathos, and logos but it wasn’t any trouble. In doing this it led to me understanding the text “Mother Tongue” better and from a more critical view. What I would take away the most out of this essay would be what I learned from ethos, pathos, and logos due to it showing me how to separate certain information, characteristics, emotions, and more from a text that could carry on a lot more, and being able to understand that a writer’s thoughts may change throughout out time and it won’t be because of a certain something that only falls in one category such as pathos it being an emotional way of thinking and writing.

        The assignments in this phase have helped me analyze texts and essays and other forms of literature easier since it has shown me many ways of finding certain information.

Sincerely, 

Emmanuel Perez

Emmanuel Perez

Molly Mosher

English 110

10/19/2020

                                                  Draft Rhetorical Analysis essay 

             “Mother tongue”, a personal essay written by Amy Tan is written to express the writer’s thought process and how it changed throughout the time she does this by using ethos, logos, pathos to her advantage. She goes on to emphasize how we all speak the same language even though we might speak it a different way and she uses her mother throughout this text as the biggest or only example of that. At the start of the essay first thing written is “I am not a scholar of English or literature. I cannot give you much more than personal opinions on the English language and its variations in this country or others” This was given to the reader to understand that throughout the text what she sees as English and how it should be or if it’s broken or not are her views on it and her thought process, that she isn’t criticizing it as an expert but as a normal person.

             Amy chooses to introduce the reader to her thoughts throughout time and how they have changed since she was younger “when I was growing up, my mother’s “limited” English limited my perception of her. I was ashamed of her English. I believed that her English reflected the quality of what she had to say, that is because she expressed them imperfectly her thoughts were imperfect. 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.” Amy shows the reader how when she was younger her thoughts differ from her thoughts right now, Amy starts seeing that her mother’s English does not truly reflect her thoughts or her mind and she goes on to state this too at the end of her essay and to also state how she wrote a book mostly thinking of her mother as the audience due to dedicating the reason for making it towards her mother “I later decided I should envision a reader for the stories I would write. And the reader I decided upon was my mother because these were stories about mothers. So with this reader in mind — and in fact, she did read my early drafts–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”; the English she used with me, which for lack of a better term might be described as “broken”; my translation of her Chinese, which could certainly be described as “watered down”; and what I imagined to be her translation of her Chinese if she could speak in perfect English, her internal language, and for that, I sought to preserve the essence, but neither an English nor a Chinese structure. I wanted to capture what language ability tests can never reveal: her intent, her passion, her imagery, the rhythms of her speech, and the nature of her thoughts.”

            Amy uses ethos, logos, and pathos to get her message across to the audience and to give the reader a view from her point of view. Amy uses ethos to show how people have treated her mother when they were together and she expresses her thoughts and how she used ethos as a way to understand what many would think. Many may not come from an immigrant family’s background and being someone who comes from a similar background I can relate to how she saw many people treat her mother differently or had certain thoughts due to her speech. Amy midway in the essay brings the reader back with her to a time where she did not follow the same believes she does now. She didn’t use much of pathos since she began to at first judge her mother or feel bad since she did follow what she sought to be true from other’s views on her mother; her speech. This is seen when Amy stated “when I was growing up, my mother’s “limited” English limited my perception of her. I was ashamed of her English. I believed that her English reflected the quality of what she had to say that is because she expressed them imperfectly her thoughts were imperfect. 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.” this gives the reader a different view on who Amy is and this is used to show the reader the change Amy had through time.

            The reader goes on to see a change from ethos to logos when they’re able to truly understand that Amy’s views from when she was younger aren’t the same as they are recently. Amy shows this in a great way by first starting the essay in a way where she can relate to her mother and to establish to the reader that her views aren’t the same as they used to be “ I’ve often used that same kind of English with him, and sometimes he even uses it with me. It has become our language of intimacy, a different sort of English that relates to family talk, the language I grew up with.” when reading this one can see that she has come to also use the same language she once criticized. Amy shows the reader the meaning of her essay when she shows that her mom’s capability in reading and writing exceeds her capability in speech “You should know that my mother’s expressive command of English belies how much she actually understands. She reads the Forbes report, listens to Wall Street Week, converses daily with her stockbroker, reads all of Shirley MacLaine’s books with ease–all kinds of things I can’t begin to understand.” No matter what others may think, certain things don’t represent who we are as a whole and this is shown when Amy’s mother is seen to do more than what she’s given credit for.

          Amy started her essay in a way for the reader to understand that she is not criticizing her mother but to where she is showing her development and her change of thoughts regarding her mother’s speech. She did this by relating to her mother and showing certain similarities. When going through Amy’s thought process she introduces the different ethos, pathos, and logos. She was able to show this by using different times in her life that represented either one of the three and this was able to let the reader understand easier the message the author is trying to teach the reader.