Reflection on Contrastive Rhetoric/Intercultural Rhetoric

Contrastive Rhetoric research was started by Robert Kaplan. Through the arguments and debates for years, although some questions were left to be answered, I believe these statements would bring us to think of the ESL/EFL writing issues from diverse angles.


Here are some questions for me to consider.

Casanave points out that “because CR deals with paragraph- and discourse- level features, teachers would be wise to introduce CR issues to intermediate and advanced learners rather than to beginners.” (p. 46) I admit that when teachers adopt the investigative and questioning approach in L2 writing, it would be difficult for the beginners to do such activities. However, are there any better methods to assist beginners to compare or contrast L1 and L2 texts?

Also, as Hinds’ point of view, he demonstrated the difference between Japanese writing and English writing. The former is reader-responsible, and the latter is writer-responsible. (p.34). However, McCaff argued that “readers of the text who are deeply familiar with Japanese culture and traditions will not find it necessary to do more work at comprehending than would readers of the English version, as long as both sets of readers share background knowledge.”(p.35) In Rinnert and Kobayashi’s study (2001), “the more experience readers would respond positively to the typically American features of essay, instead of that the inexperience writers concentrate on the content of the different versions. (P.50) So how can we expect the audiences/readers with diverse educational background or the influence of tradition and culture?

Leki (1997) showed that “CR’s primary focus on difference rather than similarities.”(p. 42) As in Xiaoming Li’s study, she found that the American teachers “appreciate logic and a clear opening” and that the Chinese teachers “appreciate an essay that expressed sentimental, natural scenes, and a moral message.”(p.49 and 50) The investigation would help us to understand the writing differences exist in diverse culture and background. However, I believe what we should do is to guide the ESL/EFL learners to acquire the knowledge in rhetorical patterns of target language and decrease the L1 influence to L2 writing.