Sociolinguistics and Language Education.pdf

282 Part 4: Language and Literacy
in the main. However, when the rhetorical features of languages other
than English are implicitly depicted as inferior, a hidden message is created:
change the habit of using those features. Studies that examine the
impact of form-focused writing instruction (e.g. stating the thesis clearly
and effectively in the introduction) on students’ use of rhetorical organizations
(e.g. Petrić, 2005) further confi rm the effectiveness of such interventions
and might reinforce the desirability of using English-type
organization. While contrastive rhetoric researchers would argue that
teaching rhetorical features of academic writing in English is not intended
to encourage students to abandon their L1 writing style, members of non-
Anglophone communities (e.g. students, teachers and education policy
makers) might not be convinced by such an argument. If rhetorical structures
for certain genres (academic writing, business writing, etc.) are
indeed becoming homogenized worldwide, would contrastive rhetoric
research lose its core impetus or will it continue to look for exotic rhetorical
conventions in various linguistic niches? Will it explore more political
dimensions of written discourse features? What is the social responsibility
of contrastive rhetoric research?
Implications for Teachers, Students and Researchers
As evident from the above discussions, contrastive rhetoric is highly
controversial. Yet, this controversial nature provides teachers with an
opportunity to critically refl ect on how to grapple with cultural and linguistic
differences. It is quite easy for teachers in Anglophone societies to
ignore cultural difference and impose the mainstream written English norm
onto international or immigrant students who are L2 writers in English. It
is equally easy for them to essentialize students’ culture and language and
create a rigid boundary between the dominant language/culture and that
of the Other. Recognizing cultural difference is often well intended, as
with the original pedagogical impetus of contrastive rhetoric. However,
focusing on cultural difference has a hidden risk of Othering and patronizes
L2 students, while viewing their language and culture as a defi cit or an
obstacle to learning to write in a second language. As many critics of contrastive
rhetoric argue, it is important to both recognize and affi rm L2 students’
L1 background and understand that their writing does not directly
refl ect their exotic culture but is signifi cantly shaped by educational practices,
local politics and ideologies, as well as transnational discourses in the
age of globalization. In encountering an essay organized in a way different
from a typical English essay, teachers need to take into account multiple
factors that could infl uence the text, such as L1 writing expertise, L2 profi
ciency, L1 and L2 writing experiences in a particular genre, the writer’s
intentions, and their own beliefs about cultural difference, instead of
attributing the difference entirely to the student’s culture.