From Contrastive Rhetoric to Intercultural Rhetoric

In “From Contrastive Rhetoric to Intercultural Rhetoric: A Search for Collective Identity,” Xiaoming Li offers alternatives to dominant discourse. I found it interesting that she initially wanted to establish her position through her language identity, describing herself as feeling more Chinese than American based on her effortless use of Chinese and need to have her articles in English proofread. I don’t know if writing is ever effortless unless she is referring to non-academic writing. In the case she was referring to non-academic writing, the comparison to her need to have articles proofread when she writes in English is not necessarily fair. The tie between language and identity certainly has many arguments that can be made for it, many of which I do not disagree with; however, relating what people do with their first language to their general identity is where I see the issue with contrastive rhetoric. She seems to set herself up as an author who has adapted to the essentializing and stereotyping as the Other while asking the reader to do none of that work with his or her own first language, probably out of consideration that many readers will have English as their first language. The treatment of English as such never asks the speaker or writer to construct that language based identity, and discussing some general features of English writing (the most popular of which seems to be “directness”) is only for the sake of establishing a norm against which other languages are measured.

In response to what she observed in her research on writing in school in China, she argued against the notion that “given the fluidity of the postmodern world, culture as indicating a bounded notion is no longer a useful category” (15). She constructs a belief to argue against and states that China has not lost its cultural identity, creating the impression that fluidity is somehow completely neglectful of culture. The problem she fails to address is that naming distinct qualities about one culture ignores similar trends happening in different forms in other cultures. For example, when she borrows Chaim Perelman’s definition of argument as attempting to change the state of affairs (16), she connects this to why argument is not taught in Chinese writing, for the culture does not welcome threats to social and political stability. She contrasts “democracy” to “dynasty.” As a reader, I wonder why she chooses not to address how the US population and government react to threats to stability. No matter how much we ask student to make an argument in writing classes, the status quo is powerful and change causes great anxiety. She reinforces the dominance of the English speaking “democracy” by not questioning its relationship to stability the same way she addresses that of China. And while I do not altogether disregard the observation she makes and its possible relationship to writing, it is an example of a generalization I find to be damaging ad have previously come across in non-academic areas of the institution. 

Contrastive Rhetoric

The relationship between perceptions about culture and power in the context of learning English as a second language was unexpected for me in this set of readings, but it reminded me of several occasions where I observed essentialized cultural labels placed on the Other and this relationship also reminded me of the labels that occur in the non-ESL composition classroom.

Throughout my encounter with the arguments in these readings, I consistently recalled the labels I feel are encouraged to place on undergraduate students. Having a vocabulary to refer to their background, behaviors, and habits is often seen as key to understanding undergraduates and therefore be able to teach them. There is a great deal of anxiety associated with being out of touch with the undergraduate student’s mind. In the writing program, much emphasis is placed on being cultural relevant to the student, and there is little concern for when this becomes patronizing. The damage for learners of English is far greater.

The analysis of how the students’ cultures affect their learning of a second language and the competence in speaking and writing in that language contains useful observations, but at times, those observations seem to Other students more than inform about the first language or the culture of the student. Students are more than traditions and generalizations. When reading about parallel constructions in Arabic, indirectness and the lack of expression of personal views in Chinese, the specific-to-general pattern in Japanese, and digression in German, I have both an interest and an appreciation for how this information was collected. While I do not want to appear dismissive of the research, I feel that the features that stand in contrast to English in the discussed languages could be seen in the writing of native speakers without being said to be problematic.

After turning to Ryuko Kubota’s “Japanese Culture Constructed by Discourses: Implications for Applied Linguistics Research and ELT,” the cultural politics in this became obvious. Navigating the dominant language looks less like being able to use its cultural capital to one’s advantage and more about expressing oneself as a Westerner. Students are then not only asked to satisfy the goal of speaking and composing in English but to think like an English-speaking person. The knowledge about the learner’s language and culture is then not being used to be able to better communicate with them as students but to overcorrect them, linguistically and culturally. In addition to the corrections based on the knowledge of cultural differences, Kubota mentions that “in the field of contrastive rhetoric, recent studies have debunked cultural myths that Japanese written discourse is characterized by culturally specific features such as reader responsibility, ki-shoo-ten-ketsua, and delayed introduction of purpose . . . (15). The already problematic labeling taking place is at times inaccurate, so we must consider the power excreted over those already Othered by defining, sometimes erroneously, their cultures.  

Week 4: Writing in the Context of Global Englishes

In “Chinese White-Collar Workers and Multilingual Creativity in the Diaspora” Xiaoye You presents the role of creativity in expanding circle countries. The place of English in their identity is especially interesting given You’s description of them as having experienced diaspora, and if diaspora is viewed as a type of consciousness and a mode of cultural production, the forum users  spatial displacement  is pacified by the play with language and culture. Stepping outside of the print context, it is evident in the bilingual creativity of the white-collar workers that they make use of American sayings and evoke Christianity in their discourse. It did not occur to me prior to reading this article that referring to the Christian concept of God when discussing their personal journeys does not mean they are Christian. The use of language to play with values and ideas associated with the English language is especially interesting with the reference to the “no pain no gain” motto. On the forum, the line is questioned when the diaspora proves to be pain without gain, which interrogates not only this particular line but the entire culture that employs it to reflect on hard work and achievement. Questioning values expressed in English and therefore associated with the English speaking world appears even stronger when the deconstruction takes place in English. This is perhaps because the use of English of these particular workers is a gesture of stepping into the English or American culture, a way of testing it, or finding a comfortable space within it. Considering that the English language is interwoven with the experience of the diaspora, it is also fascinating that when forum users choose English to express and sooth themselves using the language that granted them the opportunity to step into the same city-space that isolates them.  The language that is part of the stressful and lonely life is the language in which they share stories of their hometown memories and traditions. It is also not only the language or the topics discussed that appear to bring comfort to the posters on the forum, it is also some of the ways in which their use of the language is not standard. For example, when You says that the syntax makes a forum user sound like she is speaking Chinese, we observe that English is used to communicate at a certain comfort level that still indirectly references first languages, without compromising the fluidity with which their stories are told.