Reader

Tan's teachers encouraged her to pursue a career in math or science because she got better grades in those subjects and got in a better percentile.  They also encouraged her to pursue these careers because she was got lower grades in english than in math and science.  They miscalculated her ability in english because she wasn't getting good enough scores on papers and on achievement tests.  Also, they didn't encourage to pursue a career in english because of the english which she had grown up with which could have impacted her scores.  These are all reasons why she was discouraged to pursue a career in english.

The point that Tan is making with this story is that she uses different ways of speaking depending who she is with.  For example, when she is speaking in public she uses a more formal english and when she is with her mom she uses simpler english.  This shows that the different people that she is with has an impact on how she speaks to them.  She does not speak formal english with her mom because her mom does not speak english very well.  Her mom does not speak english well because she immigrated from China and did not grow up speaking english.

This point fits in with the larger argument of "Mother Tongue" because the title of the story suggests that there is something to do with language.  Also, the story talks about her journey with being a writer and how she speaks to different people.  The story mentions that she did not have much support from her teachers to become a writer.  As well as this it talks about how she would often have to pretend to be her mother in order to get certain things accomplished.  This is a good story because it talks about how there are different ways to talk to certain people.