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Contrastive rhetoric

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Contrastive rhetoricis the study of how a person'sfirst languageand his or her culture influencewriting in a second languageor how a common language is used among different cultures. The term was first coined by the Americanapplied linguistRobert Kaplan in 1966 to denote eclecticism and subsequent growth of collective knowledge in certain languages.[1]It was widely expanded from 1996 to today byFinnish-born, US-based applied linguist Ulla Connor,[2]among others. Since its inception the area of study has had a significant impact on the exploration of intercultural discourse structures that extend beyond the target language's native forms of discourse organization. The field brought attention to cultural and associated linguistic habits in expression of English language.[3]

This acceptance of dialect geography was especially welcomed in the United States on ESL instruction, as an emphasis on particular style inspoken-languageand writing skills was previously dominated in bothEnglish as a second language(ESL) andEnglish as a foreign language(EFL) classes.[4]

Trends[edit]

Since 1966, when Kaplan's original work on contrastive rhetoric appeared, and 1996, when Ulla Connor's book on contrastive rhetoric reinvigorated interest in the area, new trends have appeared in research approaches and methods.[5]Mainly the works ofJacques Derridain the 1970s illustrating the differences in a word's meanings in reference to other words around it is a significant contribution (e.g. Don't forget to turnrightat the intersection, vs. He insisted he wasright,although his argument made no sense, vs. I have arightto speak freely.).[citation needed]The change of accepting the linguistic depth of a language by negating negative social barriers has been affected by three major developments—the acknowledgment of more genres with specific textual requirements, increased awareness of the social contexts of writing, and the need for an alternative conceptual framework that takes a more critical perspective of contrastive rhetoric—have motivated scholars of contrastive rhetoric to adjust and supplement research approaches in their work.[citation needed]

EAP and other genres[edit]

First, there was a marked increase in the types of written texts considered the purview ofsecond language writingaround the world.[6][7]English for Academic Purposes(EAP) classes teach other types of writing besides the student essay required in college classes.[8][9]Other important genres are the academic research article, research report, and grant proposal. Writing for professional purposes, such as business, is also now considered a legitimate type of second language writing and worthy of research and teaching.[10]

Socially situated writing[edit]

Second, in addition to the expansion of the genre, textual analysis has moved contrastive rhetoric to emphasize the social situation of writing.[11]Today, writing is increasingly regarded as being socially situated; each situation may entail special consideration to audience, purposes, level of perfection, and correspondingly may require varying amounts of revision, collaboration, and attention to detail.[12]The expectations and norms of discourse communities or communities of practice (cultural and disciplinary) may shape these situational expectations and practices. This is where contrastive rhetoric overlaps withsocial constructionism,which sees approaches to textual meaning as dynamic, socio-cognitive activities. Instead of analyzing what texts "mean", the interest is to understand how they construct meaning. Bazerman and Prior (2004, p. 6) pose three questions to guide the analysis of writing:

  • "What does the text talk about?"
  • "How do texts influence audiences?"
  • "How do texts come into being?"

Critical contrastive rhetoric[edit]

Third, in response to criticisms that challenge traditional contrastive rhetoric, an alternative conceptual framework known ascritical contrastive rhetorichas been established that maintains a critical understanding of the politics of cultural difference. Critical contrastive rhetoric explores issues such as critical thinking[13]in teaching situations that challenge essentialism. It takes into considerationpoststructuralist,postcolonial,andpostmoderncritiques of language and culture, in order to reconceptualize cultural difference in rhetoric. In practice, it "affirms multiplicity of languages, rhetorical forms, and students' identities, while problematizing the discursive construction of rhetoric and identities, and thus allowing writing teachers to recognize the complex web of rhetoric, culture, power, and discourse in responding to student writing."[14]

Questions of relevance[edit]

In the early 2000s, some postmodern andcritical pedagogywriters in thesecond language writingfield, began referring to contrastive rhetoric as if it had been frozen in space.[14]Over the years, the term contrastive rhetoric had started to gain a negative connotation, even negatively affecting writing in a second language.[2]Understood by many as Kaplan's original work, contrastive rhetoric was increasingly characterized as static, and linked tocontrastive analysis,a movement associated withstructural linguisticsandbehavioralism.Many of the contributions made to contrastive rhetoric from the late 1960s to the early 1990s have been ignored. In a 2002 article, Connor[15]attempted to address these criticisms and to offer new directions for a viable contrastive rhetoric. In addressing the critiques, she aimed to draw attention to the broad scope of contrastive rhetoric and determined that a new term would better encompass the essence of contrastive rhetoric in its current state. To distinguish between the often-quoted "static" model and the new advances that have been made, Connor suggests it may be useful to begin using the termintercultural rhetoricinstead of contrastive rhetoric to refer to the current models of cross-cultural research.[10]

According to Connor, the termintercultural rhetoricbetter describes the broadening trends of expression across languages and cultures. It preserves the traditional approaches that usetextual analysis,genre analysis,andcorpus analysis,yet also introducesethnographicapproaches that examine language in interactions. Furthermore, it connotes the analysis of texts that allows for dynamic definitions of culture and the inclusion of smaller cultures (e.g., disciplinary, classroom) in the analysis.

While Connor continues to use the termintercultural rhetoric,scholars outside the United States looking at specific language differences (e.g. English and Japanese[13]and English and Spanish[16][17]) consider this to be a loaded label and continue to use the termcontrastive rhetoricfor the distinctiveness the theory shows and for the freedom of using tools to assess and understand the field in a non-restrictive manner.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^Kaplan, Robert. (1966). Cultural thought patterns in intercultural education.Language Learning16(1): 1-20.
  2. ^abConnor, Ulla. (1996).Contrastive rhetoric: Cross-cultural aspects of second-language writing.Cambridge, UK:Cambridge University Press
  3. ^Nordquist, Robert."Contrastive Rhetoric on About".About.Archived fromthe originalon 2015-04-06.Retrieved2015-01-14.
  4. ^Cai, Guanjun. (1998). "Contrastive Rhetoric."Theorizing Composition: A Critical Sourcebook of Theory and Scholarship in Contemporary Composition Studies,ed. by Mary Lynch Kennedy. Greenwood.
  5. ^Connor, Ulla., Nagelhout, E., & Rozycki, W. (Eds.) (2008). "Introduction"Contrastive Rhetoric: Reaching to Intercultural Rhetoric,John Benjamins.
  6. ^ETIC (1975). English for academic study: Problems and perspectives. ETIC Occasional Paper. London: The British Council.
  7. ^Connor, Ulla. (2004). Introduction.Journal of English for Academic Purposes3: 271-276.
  8. ^Jordan, R.R. (1997).English for academic purposes: A guide and resource book for teachers.Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
  9. ^Connor, Ulla. (2004). Intercultural rhetoric research: Beyond texts.Journal of English for Academic Purposes3: 291-304
  10. ^abConnor, Ulla (2013)."Intercultural Rhetoric and EAP/ESP"(PDF).National University of Singapore.
  11. ^Bazerman, Charles, & Prior, Paul. (Eds.). (2004).What writing does and how it does it: An introduction to analyzing texts and textual practices.Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
  12. ^McCool, Matthew. (2009). Writing around the world: a guide to writing across cultures. London: Continuum.
  13. ^abMcKinley, Jim (2013)."Displaying critical thinking in EFL academic writing: A discussion of Japanese to English contrastive rhetoric"(PDF).RELC Journal.44(2): 195–208.doi:10.1177/0033688213488386.S2CID143706450.Archived fromthe original(PDF)on 2018-01-14.Retrieved2018-01-14.
  14. ^abKubota, Ryuko & Lehner, Al. (2004). Toward critical contrastive rhetoric.Journal of Second Language Writing,13, 7–27.
  15. ^Connor, Ulla. (2002). New directions in contrastive rhetoric.TESOLQuarterly 36: 493-510.
  16. ^Jiménez Ramirez, Jorge. (2010)."Cómo aumentar la calidad de la escritura en la enseñanza de español" (How to improve texts in Spanish as a Second Language) ".Actas XXI Congreso Internacional ASELE. Cáceres (Spain): Ediciones de la Universidad de Extremadura.Retrieved2015-01-15.
  17. ^Sanchez-Escobar, Ángel F. (2012).A Contrastive Analysis of the Rhetorical Patterns of English and Spanish Expository Journal Writing.CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
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