Read the excerpt from "Mother Tongue." Just last week, I was walking down the street with my mother, and | again found myself conscious of the
English I was using, the English I do use with her. We were talking about the price of new and used furniture
and I heard myself saying this: "Not waste money that way." My husband was with us as well, and he didn't
notice any switch in my
English. And then I realized why. It's because over the twenty years we've been
together 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 i
with.
How does Tan build a central idea
of her story in the excerpt?