Toward a new contrastive rhetoric: Differences between Arabic and Japanese rhetorical instruction

A survey of Japanese and Arabic ESL students is reported on to investigate how writing is taught in different cultures and reveals that rhetorical instruction does differ in these two cultures: in Japan, instruction emphasizes the expressive function of writing, whereas in Arab countries, it emphasizes the transactional function.

Abstract

Contrastive rhetoric is being updated to accommodate the new process rhetoric. An expanded Contrastive rhetoric focuses not only on finished written products, but on the contexts in which writing occurs and on the processes involved in its production. Two limitations exist in the early theory and research of Contrastive rhetoric. First, Contrastive rhetoricians had a narrow view of rhetoric, considering only the organization of finished texts. Second, they had a narrow view of Western rhetoric. After discussing these limitations and pointing out the need for a richer view of the contrasts between the rhetorics of different cultures, this article reports on a survey of Japanese and Arabic ESL students to investigate how writing is taught in different cultures. The survey reveals that rhetorical instruction does differ in these two cultures: In Japan, instruction emphasizes the expressive function of writing, whereas in Arab countries, it emphasizes the transactional function.