This paper presents a critical review of the cross-cultural writing styles in the light of contrastive rhetoric approach established by Kaplan in 1966. Although Kaplan compared different writing styles depending on the culture each language was attached to, his comparison was criticized by some scholars the prominent one of which is Conor 1996.…

Western teachers working in China often experience cultural conflicts arising from, for instance, the ways that Chinese students perceive face and express criticism. To better understand these face-concerned conflicts, this paper explores the role and significance of email for a group of Chinese students to communicate pedagogical criticism with…

For learners of Japanese, a conundrum arises at university level as they are expected to be able to shift between direct and indirect language in various writing tasks. The apparent indirectness in inductive language is required of regular writing tasks such as response essays and e-mails, while the directness of deductive academic writing, a…

This article presents selective findings from an ongoing study that investigates rhetorical differences in business letter writing between Vietnamese students taking an English for Specific Purposes course in Vietnam and business professionals. Rhetorical analyses are based on two corpora, namely, scenario (N = 20) and authentic business letters…

This literature review serves to inform the reader on current literature on Contrastive Rhetoric (CR), with specific reference to teaching writing to Japanese students of English. It will examine the historical developments of CR and its present significance before then looking at possible reasons for unique characteristics of Japanese L2 writers…

Student academic writing in higher education is a central component of language programs whose purpose is to promote advanced literacy in the target language. At this level, students are required to produce texts that are analytical-argumentative in nature. This type of genre requires writers to formulate an interpretative statement or thesis and…

Reports on the findings of a study that examined the persuasive written texts of 60 university first-year composition students, half of whom were native speakers of English and half of whom were nonnative English speakers. Considers 33 variables between the 2 subgroups. Finds clear differences. Discusses results and implications for…