Language Variations, Cultural Perception, and Literary Expression

Language serves as a tool to evoke emotion, visual imagery, complex ideas, and simple truth.
Standard English—built with nominalized forms, past perfect tenses, and conditional phrases—differs from the informal language of intimacy used within a household.
Shared family language forms an internal medium of intimacy that evolves across twenty years between long-term partners and family members.
Spoken dialect does not reflect comprehension; a speaker of non-standard English can easily read the Forbes report, listen to Wall Street Week, converse with a stockbroker, and read books by Shirley MacLaine.
Outside observers often miscalculate comprehension of non-standard English, estimating understanding at 50 percent, 80 to 90 percent, or none at all.

Labeling non-standard speech as "broken" or "limited" incorrectly implies that the speaker's intellect, thoughts, or perceptions are damaged or limited.
Public and professional institutions—including department stores, banks, and hospitals—frequently give poor service or ignore individuals speaking non-standard English.
Immigrant parents often rely on teenage children at age fifteen to act as telephone proxies (under names like Mrs. Tan) to demand late checks two weeks overdue from stockbrokers in New York or address lost medical scans.
When an individual speaking perfect Standard English intervenes, institutions quickly reverse their stance, offering apologies, promises, and conference calls.

The insular spoken language of an immigrant household heavily influences a child's language development and test results.
Standardized English achievement tests evaluate rigid semantic opposites and word analogies (such as "sunset is to nightfall") rather than imaginative or associative thinking.
Asian-American students frequently score in the sixtieth or seventieth percentile on English achievement tests while scoring in the ninetieth percentile or higher in math and science.
Academic institutions often interpret test disparities by steering non-standard English speakers away from literature and into technical fields such as engineering or pre-med.

Broad sociological questions surround Asian-American representation in literature and academics:
- Why are there not more Asian Americans represented in American literature?
- Why are few Asian Americans enrolled in creative writing programs?
- Why do so many Chinese students go into engineering?
Cultural narratives—such as the Shanghai history involving Du Yusong, Du Zong, Tsuing-ming Island, pitong river-east locals, and wedding respect customs—demonstrate rich background context and social nuance independent of standard English fluency.

Rebellious responses to institutional steering allow writers to challenge disproving assumptions about their capabilities.
Starting fiction writing in 1985 initially involved overly formal phrases (such as "That was my mental quandary in its nascent state") before shifting toward authentic language.
Envisioning a non-standard English-speaking mother as the primary reader for drafts of stories in The Joy Luck Club allows writers to integrate all household Englishes: simple conversational English, non-standard spoken structures, and translated internal thought rhythms.
True literary success captures intent, passion, imagery, rhythm, and thought nature beyond standardized testing metrics, fulfilling the verdict: "So easy to read."