Contrastive rhetoric revisited: Taiwanese advanced ESL learners' organizational structures in persuasive English writings

The major theoretical framework on which the present study is based includes Kaplan's original contrastive rhetoric concept and Matsuda's revised version of contrastive rhetoric. According to Kaplan's original contrastive rhetoric, first put forth in his article "Cultural thought patterns in intercultural education" in the 60s and maintained in his book "The anatomy of rhetoric: Prolegomena to a functional theory of rhetoric" of the 70s, organizational preferences in a type of writing (e.g., expository essay writing) are different across cultures or languages. L2 learners tend to transfer their L1 organizational preferences to organize their L2 writing. One of the limitations of the original contrastive rhetorical concept is its ignorance of the intervening influences of writers' personal experiences or backgrounds on their L2 organization. The limitation is revised by Matsuda. In his article, "Contrastive rhetoric in context: A dynamic model of L2 writing," Matsuda claims that important roles may be played, not only by L2 writers' L1 organizational preferences, but also by their education and various personal experiences; these are important elements that determine what will go into writing L2 organizational structures.; Based on the weak version of Kaplan's early contrastive rhetoric (differences in organizational structure across cultures and the cross-cultural influence on L2 organization), this study examined the degree to which eight Taiwanese ESL learners' textual organizations in English persuasive writings may reflect English writing conventions and the cross-cultural influence of the Chinese writing conventions. By taking Matsuda's revised model as the supplementary framework, this study also examined how the eight Taiwanese ESL learners' English organizational structures might be shaped by their other backgrounds, such as education and other personal experiences.; It is found that the English persuasive writings by the participants, more or less, have deviations from the English organizational conventions. Some of the deviations reflect the cross-cultural influence of the Chinese organizational conventions. However, the English writings by three participants with most training and practices in English writing in college reflect greater proficiency in the English organizational norms. This study also found that L2 organizational norms may transfer backward, and influence the writers' organization of their L1 writing.