1. Contrastive Rhetoric
Cross-cultural aspects of second-
language writing
Presenter: Pei-Hsuan Lin
ETAP 631
Fall 2012
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2. Outline of this Book
• Ch1: aims, purposes, what is
it, how it is important
• Ch2-3 : history of the
development of contrastive
rhetoric
• Ch4-8: interfaces with other fields
• Ch9-10: practical applications and
methodological concerns
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3. Contrastive Rhetoric
• Contrastive rhetoric is the study of how a person's first
language and culture influence his/her writing in a
second language.
• The focus are “the role of first language conventions of
discourse and rhetoric structure on second language
usage, as well as cognitive and cultural dimensions of
transfer, particularly in relation to writing (xi)”.
• How second language writers draw on a range of
cross-linguistic and cross-cultural influences at both
the sentence, paragraph, and textual level (cohesion,
coherence, schematic structure) and culturally bound
assumptions about the nature and purposes of written
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texts can transfer form one language to another.

4. Trend of Contrastive Rhetoric
• Research began in the 1960s, started by the American
applied linguist Robert B. Kaplan.
• Logic and rhetoric are independent and cultural
specific.
• Classic rhetoric emphasizes on its persuasiveness :
coherent & convincing (sentence level)
• Expansion of the genre: take a broader, more
communicative view across interdisciplinary
boundaries including education, pedagogy, linguistic,
literacy, and translation studies.
• from “cognitive” and “mental” to “social” and
“cultural” 4

5. Contrastive Rhetoric Studies in Applied
Linguistics
• Contrastive analysis: mistakes made by L2 learners were
caused by the native language
• Error analysis: systematic errors in the performance of L2
learners
• Analysis of interlanguage: “transitional competence of L2
learner” to create “a system that is distinct from both the
native and the target language” (p13)
• Cultural-specific patterns of organization affects writing
convention.
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6. Contrastive Rhetoric Studies in Applied
Linguistics (Count.)
• Ex. Chinese: oriental (indirect, circular) pattern
• Eight-legged essay: qi-cheng-jun-he model
Chinese rhetoric lacks of argumentative coherence vs. the
phrases, sayings, allusions are used to ornament and
enliven discourse.
• Confucian cultivation of virtue and maintenance of ethics
and harmony
Accept traditional values and social norms vs. non-critical/
lack of personal insight
• Implicit expression “suggest”
Use rhetoric questions, analogies, and anecdotes to reveal
intentions vs. fuzzy, obscure, vague 6

7. Contrastive Rhetoric Studies in Applied
Linguistics (Count.)
• “text” and “discourse” is not clearly distinguished
• The process that readers and writers go through in their
attempts to comprehend and produce texts (p19).
• Understanding cultural variation
• Group good (eastern) vs. individual good (Western)
• “dialogue across the differences” in class
• New directions in contrastive rhetoric: culture and
sociolinguistics perspectives – discourse analysis and
processes of writing—considered people, whole text and
dynamic entities
• Interpretation: socio-cultural aspects toward
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self, others, society, and social interaction

8. Contrastive Rhetoric & Composition
• Classical rhetoric: “For Aristotle, rhetoric existed
primarily to persuade.” (p64). “New” rhetoric in 1960s
suggested that each speaker holds the idea of the
universal audience.
• Expressionist rhetoric: an opportunity to explore one’s
inner feeling.
• Cognitive rhetoric: consider writing as a
complex, recursive process involving
task, environment, the writer’s long term memory and
the composing processes.
• Writing topic, audience, analysis, possible writing plans, and
writing process.
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• Social constructive rhetoric: context and situation of
writing

9. Genre-specific Studies in Contractive
Rhetoric
• Genre: a communicative event that members narrowly
focus on rhetoric action exhibiting similar patterns of
structure, style, content, and intended audience.
• “The genre names inherited and produced by discourse
communities and imported by others constitute valuable
ethnographic communication”(p127).
• Berkenkotter and Huckin’s idea that humans as social
actors learn, monitor, and reproduce knowledge of genre
is a form of situated cognition embedded in disciplinary
activities (p128).
• Bakhtin’s idea consider genre as a dynamic and social
text which is a ongoing process of discourse production
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tied to other utterance in a culture (p128).

10. Genre-specific Studies in Contractive
Rhetoric (Count.)
• Student writing (different levels): different language use
with various cultural backgrounds
• Academic writing(research articles and grant proposals):
• explain research motivation and justify publication (CARS
model)
• classical rhetoric :persuade based on ethical and logical
arguments
• professional writing (letters, resume, job application,
business writing, editorials) : different cultural
expressions
• More studies need to be conducted. 10

11. Research in Contractive Rhetoric
• “The primary impetus of for contractive rhetoric is
finding solutions to immediate pedagogical problems, in
which explain why contractive studies deal with the
English writing of non-English students” (p156).
• Methods: reflective inquiry, quantitative descriptive
research, prediction and classification studies, surveys,
case studies and ethnography, true and quasi
experiments
• Interdisciplinary involving social and cultural aspects in
L1 and L2, it is mostly lack of described steps of analysis.
• Design flows: small sample size, a mix of genre, 11
generalizing from L2 to L1 behavior.

12. Conclusion
• Contrastive rhetoric is a knowledge and awareness about
differences in writing patterns across cultures.
• Contrastive rhetoric research shows that different
cultures have different expectations of writing and that
these different expectations are internalized as different
patterns of discourse.
• Understanding contrastive rhetoric well makes people
realize explicitly how writing in different languages works.
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