Investigating the Persuasive Writing Performance of Moroccan Advanced EFL Students: Is it a problem of “Language” or ‘Reasoning” Acquisition Device?

This study investigates the extent to which the results of rhetorical comparisons of persuasive essays by US English native speakers and others by Moroccan advanced EFL students will provide empirical evidence for Kaplan‘s (1966) contrastive rhetoric hypothesis. This is especially regarding the fact that EFL students-writing problems are a byproduct of the negative transfer of rhetorical strategies from their first language (L1). This hypothesis is tested by comparing 20 EFL and Arabic L1 persuasive essays by the same EFL students to essays in English as L1 by native speakers to identify the extent to which the language of composing and one’s cultural background affects the writing quality of their essays. The study hypothesizes that if Kaplan’s contrastive rhetoric claims were accurate, then Moroccan advanced EFL writers would produce essays that tend to be rhetorically less accurate when judged by standard English rhetorical criteria. Moreno’s (2005) approach to match comparable corpora of persuasive essays from two different cultural and linguistic backgrounds was adopted. As for the study participants, 40 advanced student-writers from two discrepant language and cultural backgrounds were recruited to take part in the study. While the results of a stepwise multiple regression analysis provides further evidence corroborating the validity of the rhetorical measures used in the study, group mean scores comparisons and a Multiple Discriminant analysis of the data indicates that those writers from various cultural backgrounds seem to face far more similar than different rhetorical problems and their writing inadequacies are equally distributed regardless of which language the study participants used to write their essays.

Whites and Browns: A Contrastive Study of Metadiscourse in English Newspaper Editorials

Metadiscourse is an interesting field of inquiry which is believed to play a vital role in organizing and producing persuasive writing. It is a set of linguistic devices used to communicate attitudes and mark the structural properties of a text. The study aimed to investigate whether native and non-native varieties of English varieties are similar or different from each other from the perspective of interactional meta-discourse markers. The study as contrastive rhetoric research scrutinized a corpus of 900 newspapers editorials (450 written in native English newspapers and 450 written in non-native English newspapers). Editorials were culled from 15 native English newspapers belonging to three native English countries, England, America and New Zealand, and 15 non-native English newspapers belonging to three non-native English countries, Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka. Based on the model of metadiscourse given by Hyland (2005), interactional metadiscoursive resources were analyzed. The frequencies of interactional metadiscourse markers in both native and non-native varieties were counted and compared with each other. The results disclosed that there were worth-pointing differences between the native and non-native English editorialists in the use of interactional metadiscourse markers. Two different varieties of English editorials showed variations particularly in the use of hedging and self-mention markers. On the whole, findings suggested that the use of interactional metadiscourse markers in native English editorials were more frequent than those in non-native English editorials which made their writings more appealing and convincing. Keywords: metadiscourse, native, non-native, newspaper, editorials

A Contrastive Study of Discourse Construction Features of Abstracts of Chinese and Foreign English Academic Papers From the Perspective of Contrastive Rhetoric

is responsible for introducing research, attracting readers and other multiple functions, and has its own unique characteristics of discourse construction. Through objective analysis of the characteristics of discourse construction in abstracts published by Chinese and foreign scholars in international English journals, the accuracy of the expression of the articles can be increased. The author builds his own corpus and makes a contrastive analysis of the frequency, types and distribution of fuzzy restrictive language in each step of English abstracts in Chinese and foreign journals, and summarizes the unique short language types and textual functions of each step. The results show that the distribution trend of hedges in the fourth step of English abstracts in Chinese and foreign journals is generally the same, but there are significant differences in the types of use and the frequency of occurrence. Therefore, in English abstract writing, Chinese authors should properly use various types of rhetorical devices to enhance the diversity of language expression, so as to better obtain the recognition of readers.

Analyzing English for Academic Purposes textbooks in China: A study of intercultural issues

An increase of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) teaching in China has resulted in a surge of EAP textbooks on the market. However, there has been little accompanying interest in how well intercultural issues are handled and presented in these publications. Accordingly, the present study employs Chinese students’ Cultures of Learning (CoL) and contrastive rhetoric (CR) as reflection points in the analysis of the content, production, and consumption of two series of EAP textbooks adapted from overseas textbooks. Findings revealed that intercultural differences are not given due recognition in the textbooks which in some cases can lead to confusion and misunderstanding. Meanwhile, the teachers involved in the study, as users of the other textbook series, were found to treat the textbooks only as a supplementary EAP teaching resource. Moreover, the continued confusion on the part of some of the students involved in the study highlighted the desirability for future textbooks to render intercultural differences in a critical EAP manner.

The Effect of Critical Rhetoric in Teaching English as a Foreign Language

The present paper represents an attempt so as to examine and analyze texts in terms of the context and its relation to cultural, political and social issues. It also provides theoretical and practical information which are used in classroom to facilitate learning foreign language. Rhetorical analysis is essential to be used and incorporated into EFL classroom because it is an important field which is not isolated from other disciplines like critical thinking and learning process. Special emphasis is laid upon the role of contrastive rhetoric in facilitating the process of learning foreign languages. Some pedagogical implications for studying L2 correctly and effectively are also tackled. Furthermore, the major role of pragmatics in analyzing the Second and Foreign Language text is also highlighted. This is accomplished within a pedagogical point of view. It is hoped that the paper will be of value to EFL teachers, syllabus designers, applied linguists and specialists in ethnography of communication.

Korean EFL students’ argumentative writing in L1 and L2: A comparative move analysis study

Purpose This comparative study aims to investigate the rhetorical organization of Korean and English argumentative texts. In previous studies, the rhetorical organization of such texts has been categorized as either direct or indirect depending on the placement of the thesis statement (Chien, 2011). The present study attempts to document more specific rhetorical patterns using Swales (1990) concept of moves and steps. Design/methodology/approach Ten Korean EFL students with similar L1 and L2 literacy backgrounds were selected, and, adopting a within-subject design, the students wrote two argumentative essays, one in Korean and one in English, in response to two different topics. The students’ essays were analyzed at both the macro and micro levels. The focus of the macro-level analysis was on the placement of the thesis statement and of topic sentences in each of the body paragraphs. Once the macro-level analysis was done, the essays were analyzed at the micro level using Swales (1990) move analysis. Findings The findings suggest that both texts were organized in a similar way at the macro level, constituting a typical paper structure (i.e. introduction, body and conclusion). However, a difference appears at the micro level: the students used a variety of steps to create a move when writing in Korean, whereas little variation was found in the English texts. An analysis of the data suggests the possibility that the standardized moves and steps in the English texts may be due not to culture-specific rhetoric, but to a lack of practice with rhetorical thinking in English. Originality/value In previous studies, the rhetorical organization of texts has been categorized as either direct or indirect depending on the placement of the thesis statement. The present study uses the framework of move analysis to describe more specific organizational patterns of Korean and English writing to determine the extent to which Korean and English writing is similar in the genre of argumentative writing. Another significance of the study lies in the choice of Korean writing as a reference point for comparison with English writing. It has been widely noted that there is a dearth of research of Korean students’ writing in contrastive rhetoric. To the best of the author’s knowledge, most of the contrastive rhetoric studies were conducted with Chinese or Japanese student writers.

A Study of the One-to-One Writing Tutoring Effects

This chapter is motivated by the fact that few studies have been made about the effects of one-on-one writing tutoring in English writing centers in Chinese universities. It intends to examine the effects through the evaluation of tutors' performance by students. A sample of 57 students responded to the questionnaires designed based on Kaplan's 7 EFL writing objectives proposed in his theory of contrastive rhetoric with minor revision, and 12 participated the structured in-depth interviews. Results demonstrate that tutors have achieved higher level of satisfaction in objectives of vocabulary and expressions (86%), sentence and grammar(85%), etc., but lower satisfaction level in those of awareness of audience(37%), discourse structure (34%), and rhetoric and writing knowledge (40%). The findings indicate no significant correlation between tutoring duration and students' improvement extent, yet a strong negative association between students' language proficiency and their improvement. Finally, some measures about enhancing tutoring effects are suggested.

‘Inevitable distinctions’

Professionals working in residential care for children everyday perform the institutional relevant activity of constructing their cases. This article analyzes the ways in which they construct the case of ‘unaccompanied minors’ (UAM) and how, in doing so, they talk into being their everyday practices of work. Drawing on ethnographic interviews with Italian residential care professionals, this study adopts a Discourse Analysis approach. Findings illustrate how the discursive assemblage of UAM relies on participants’ multiple distinctions and on a contrastive rhetoric that is widely used in social work. Differences in the case-construction of UAM mirror participants’ institutional settings and overall socio-cultural debate, paving the way for future investigation.