CONTRASTIVE RHETORIC: CROSS-CULTURAL ASPECTS OF SECOND-LANGUAGE WRITING.Ulla Connor. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Pp. xv + 201. $47.95 cloth, $18.95 paper.

This volume charts the development of contrastive rhetoric (CR) over the past 30 years. Although CR has not attempted to identify developmental stages of L2 writers, it is essentially the study of transfer: the influence of L1 writing conventions and cultural and cognitive dimensions on L2 writing. Major strengths of this book are its critical review of the literature, concise definitions, and documentation of the progression of CR from narrow L2 text-based analyses to the inclusion of multiple approaches.