Verified Document

Deborah Tannen And Amy Tan Term Paper

¶ … Deborah Tannen and Amy Tan use language as a springboard to discuss gender. In "Marked Women, Unmarked Men," Tannen shows how the English language reflects a patriarchal culture. In "Mother Tongue," Tan demonstrates how her mother's limited English belies her power, strength, and intelligence. Tan is more concerned with ethnicity than Tannen. However, Tannen also understands how "geographical region, ethnicity, class, age and gender" interact. Therefore, Tannen and Tan appreciate the impact of language on gender and the impact of gender on language even while Tan frames her argument in terms of her ethnic identity.

Language and linguistics play an important role in Tan's and Tannen's analyses of gender. Tannen deeply delves into the ways women are more "marked" than men, borrowing her metaphor from the field of linguistics. Whereas the men at the table wore relatively nondescript clothing and hairstyles, each of the women had carefully cultivated her own style. Women are expected, Tannen argues, to mark themselves. Another way women mark themselves is by choosing whether or not to keep their surname after getting married. Amy Tan desists from using the linguistic terms that Tannen uses. However, Tan does note that while linguists point to the role of peers in shaping language skills she believes that the language spoken in the home may be more important to shaping a child's identity. Therefore, Tan and Tanner both use linguistics to prove a different point.

Even though their arguments differ, both Tan and Tannen refer to the ways women become marked. Although Tan does not use the term "marked," she implies that ethnic background is a type of cultural marking. Ethnicity can be a highly visible marker, leading to prejudices and biases. Tan's mother tongue led to her being labeled and marked just as much as her mother was. Tannen could easily have incorporated Tan's ideas about ethnicity into "Marked Women, Unmarked Men" to discuss ways the dominant culture squelches the voices of both females and minorities. Tan is therefore more concerned with how language impacts personal identity, whereas Tannen is concerned with how language influences social roles. Both authors illustrate the power of language in shaping personal identity and social norms.

Works Cited

Tan, Amy. "Mother Tongue." Retrieved Nov 16, 2007 at http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/tannend/nyt062093.htm

Tannen, Deborah. "Marked Women, Unmarked Men." Retrieved Nov 16, 2007 at http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/tannend/nyt062093.htm

Cite this Document:
Copy Bibliography Citation

Related Documents

Literature of North America
Words: 1824 Length: 4 Document Type: Term Paper

North American Literature of the 20th Century: A Literature of Alienation North American literature of the twentieth century began as a predominantly white male-dominated literature, on the heels of 19th century romantic literary expression, such as within the works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Mark Twain, William Dean Howells, Stephen Crane, and others. Similarly, in the early decades of the 20th century, American literature was dominated by the likes of William

Literature As Psychology
Words: 330 Length: 1 Document Type: Term Paper

Psychology and Literature Both psychology and literature explore how people interact with each other. Both psychology and literature explore how prior events affect what follows. Both psychology and literature look at how a person grows, develops and changes over time. However, psychology looks at how events affect what people do and how they act in very precise ways, while literature fictionalizes and supposes what an imaginary person might do. Psychology looks

Literature As Educational Philosophy
Words: 1450 Length: 5 Document Type: Essay

classroom, regardless of the age of the learner, we realize that there are multiple learning styles and responses to divergent stimuli. The modern pedagogical environment is faced with a number of challenges that are directly related to learning. In fact, as an educational pendulum swings, we find any number of methods that are thought to be new and innovative; yet it is sometimes the tried and true methods that

Literature of Latin America and the Caribbean
Words: 1200 Length: 4 Document Type: Term Paper

OCTAVIO PAZ "TRANSPLANTED LANGUAGES" Octavio Paz's 1990 Nobel Lecture accentuated the issue of transplanted languages and the literature that emerged in a transplanted culture. Latin-American and Caribbean literature is good example of the use of transplanted languages since the influence of European and American cultures is quite pronounced. When people migrate from one place to another or are forced to endure foreign rule, the impact on the language is usually the

Literature and Codes of Behavior in the Middle Ages
Words: 2336 Length: 8 Document Type: Term Paper

Courtly love your purchase. COURTLY LOVE AND MIDDLE AGES LITERATURE In this paper, we shall study the tradition of Courtly love in the Middle Ages as reflected by literary works produced in that period. The paper will first focus on what the exact nature of Courtly Love, then proceed to briefly discuss its development and finally take into account the literary works of Middle Ages that contained elements of this tradition. Courtly love

Literature and Sexuality
Words: 1661 Length: 5 Document Type: Term Paper

Abbe Prevost's tale of Manon Lescaut performs several different functions at once. It is in part a cautionary story. It is in part a push to create a fully modern sensibility in French literature. It is in part an exploration of the trope of Romanticism. And in all of these things it is partly a story about the New World, for to Prevost, as to other Europeans of his time,

Sign Up for Unlimited Study Help

Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.

Get Started Now