Teacher therapy

Halliday’s (1975) theory on “meaning potential” came from an intrinsic concept of language acquisition and language use and defined from a cultural point of view as “what people can mean and can do (Kachru, 1997).  Halliday argues that it is in language use that culture is transmitted and subsequently develops individual and social identity.  As it is claimed that “language is not a set of isolated sentences; rather, it is an interrelated set of texts in which meaning potential is actualized (Kachru, 1999, p. 77), it can be said that the context of culture defines the meaning potential, while the context of situation determines its actualization because it is in cultural society where language is used. As can be gleaned from the definition of “meaning potential” as given by Kachru, it can be said that “meaning potential” has some form of intertextuality in which the production and interpretation of text is derived not only from text but also from social context.The notion of “meaning potential” also finds its relevance in the writing systems like linguistic structures and rhetorical patterns.  Besides, it is also relevant to the teaching of writing to the Outer Circle in the form of contrastive rhetoric, a basically under-researched area of applied linguistics.  It has been believed that users of English who belong to the Outer Circle particularly Philippines, Singapore, and India which are considered multilingual countries have developed their own rhetorical patterns which are reflective of their cultures.  In other words, rhetorical patterns in these Outer Circle of English users do not necessarily follow the linear format of the Anglo-American style.  The concept of “meaning potential” is important in the teaching of writing in these countries so that they can be understood by the readers from the Inner Circle of English. Outer circle writers of English are often found to be unskilled, inefficient by the readers from the Inner Circle, thus “meaning potential” theory can help native speakers understand the Outer Circle writers through the context of culture, as it is claimed that “humans are alike in their capacity for language acquisition” (Kachru, 1997).

A number of CR studies have been conducted and have been criticized but it is undeniable that CR studies have had an impact on writing across cultures and on teaching of English in the Outer Circle.  It can be said therefore that CR studies help in understanding the “ways of saying and meaning” (Kachru, 1999) of rhetorical styles and culture of speech communities.  However, in doing CR studies Kachru explicitly mentioned that there should be comparable data especially when the study involves Outer Circle.  The researcher’s main task is to see to it that traditions of writing of language under investigation have been studied because there might be certain genre that is unique to the language and culture, and each genre might be governed by a set of rhetorical patterns.  In addition, social meaning and intertextuality should be taken into account in CR research because meanings can be derived from the social context and the texts present in the culture’s tradition.  This is important in accounting for genre differences across cultures. 

In Kachru (1997), it was mentioned that Inner Circle users of English have the competence in rhetorical form which the Outer Circles do not possess. I beg to disagree because even among the Inner Circle, American or British, there are variations found and that their rhetorical forms do not follow the ideal linear form.  Therefore, while it is worthwhile to teach L2 writing based on the Anglo-American linear format, it is also noteworthy to make learners become aware and appreciate the rhetorical patterns of their own culture.  (February 19, 2008).

Since the birth of Robert Kaplan’s influential work in 1966, the study of contrastive rhetoric (CR) has already undergone major developments. Researchers who advocated Kaplan’s theory started doing studies on topics like CR and classroom-based studies e.g. Hull et. al (1991) who found cultural mismatches in the classroom through student conversations, collaborative work, and teacher-student conferences; Scollon and Scollon (1981) who found conflicts in communication between native Americans  and English-speaking North Americans; and Goldstein and Conrad (1990) who found differences in students’ participation and negotiation of meaning in conferences.  What Kaplan started also gave rise to the modern CR and genre analysis like the work of Swales (1990) which provided the model in  doing CR analysis on genres and discourse communities. Along this line, Mauranen (1993) made use of genre analysis when she investigated the metalanguage strategies of economists in their economic reports, as well as Connor and Kramer (1995) who compared the writing of business case reports among ESL and American business graduate students.

The noted developments in CR studies can be said to have anchored on the contemporary writing theories.  First, the classical rhetoric saw the changing definition of rhetoric from the times of ancient Greeks to Aristotle whose work was initially unknown but was later recognized by rhetoricians like Janice Lauer and Edward Corbett.  In 1998, Connor and Lauer initiated a discussion of Aristotlean rhetoric as an aid in teaching and evaluating persuasive writing.  After which, there was an emergence of new theories which were remarkably developed by Toulmin and Perelman in 1958.  Toulmin provided a model of argumentative writing, while Perelman introduced the new rhetoric.  Eventually, Toulmin’s model was used to study students’ writing cross-culturally, while Perelman’s new rhetoric was applied in informal arguments.  Second, the expressionist approach considers writing as an individualistic activity whereby the writer has to explore his/her inner feelings.  The expressionists such as Donald Murray (1970) and Peter Elbow (1981) believe that composition teachers should provide the appropriate atmosphere where students can write, and that students should confine to themselves alone when writing so that they can do some introspection.  With this prescription, Reid (1984a; 1984b) and Horowitz (1986a; 1986b) posited that the expressionist approach may not be good for beginning ESL students, thus has little room for CR studies.   The theory was tested by Scollon (1991) with his Taiwanese students and it was found out that the expressionist approach was not appropriate for Taiwanese students who have collective sense of self as an influence of their culture.  Third, the cognitive approach considers writing as complex cognitive process.  Researchers using this approach have looked into the mental states of writers as well as their stylistic decisions and their composing processes.  In L1 research, the notable contribution of Emig (1971) pioneered the shift of product to process approach in writing.  Likewise, Flower and Hayes (1981) developed a cognitive model of composing which made them claim that composing seems to be a complex problem-solving activity.  Moreover, their study revealed some contradictions from the traditional writing pedagogy in which students were found to be writing recursively, not in Anglo-American linear fashion.  In terms of L2 writing, the research proponents during this time i.e. Raimes (1987) and Krapel (1990) apparently followed the L1 writing research processes.  At this point, it can be said that CR studies have been influenced significantly by process-oriented approach to writing.  This development led many of the researchers to consider not just the written product but also the context, situation, knowledge, and purpose of writing among students of different cultures.  Finally, the social constructivist approach gave emergence to the studies on “situated writing” (Witte, 1992); “speech community” (Nystrand, 1982); “discourse community” (Bizzell, 1982a, 1982b); non-academic writing (Odell and Goswami, 1985); and ethnographic studies of two communities and their literary practices (Heath, 1983).  The theorists of this approach consider context and situation, also known as the “discourse community”, as the integral part of writing.  Research findings of those who advocate social constructivist approach seem to indicate that writing in one’s discourse community is indeed a complex process. This development has helped CR researchers understand the function of context and situation in cross-cultural aspect.

Today, the pedagogical implications of contrastive rhetoric are very promising and are challenging.  Looking at the development in CR, it can be said that it has greatly evolved from the simple ‘doodles article” that Kaplan did in the 60s to a more sophisticated and academic nature that it is today.   This implies that Kaplan’s “doodles article” has already gone a long way in the teaching of writing and composition and in understanding L1 and L2 students across cultures. 

The shift of CR studies from L1-focused research to L2 pedagogy indicates that CR have already influenced linguists and language researchers toward a better understanding of multifaceted students in the classroom.  Hence, CR today does not only focus on the writings in L1 but also speakers of languages other than English.  Connor (1996) posits that CR research is multidisciplinary, for it has tremendously developed from students’ expository writing to a variety of genre cross-culturally, which enables a more categorical and focused analysis of students’ writing vis-à-vis culture. Apparently, the field of contrastive rhetoric presents a fascinating challenge, especially to composition teachers of L2 writing who are not aware of the issues in cross-cultural communication. Not much CR investigation and research have been done, and it seems that the ideal solution has not been yet identified that will guarantee unproblematic teaching of rhetorical patterns to both L1 and L2 students. As has been pointed out in the CR researches studied, there seems to be an overemphasis given to the linear Anglo-American fashion in writing which has the tendency to encourage nonnative speakers of English to underestimate their writing style.  Thus the study of CR is significant in addressing the issue on rhetorical patterns, attitudes and cultures of nonnative speakers of English.  (February 12, 2008).

References

Connor, U. (1996).  Contrastive rhetoric:  Cross-cultural aspects of second-language writing.  USA:  Cambridge University Press

Magistro, E. (2007).  The multilingual classroom: New rhetorical frontiers in L2 writing?. College Quarterly.  10 (2). Retrieved on February 11, 2008 from http://www.senecac.on.ca/quarterly/2007-vol10-num02-spring/magistro.html

Of the four language skills, writing has been considered the most difficult to master, the most exacting, and at the same time, the most important especially in academic writing. People expect so much from the written output. Writing is the least spontaneous of the four, thereby it necessitates careful thoughts and deliberate planning. Because writing does not enjoy the immediacy of speaking situation, it demands precision in the translation of ideas into words. When one puts something in writing, he communicates with someone who may or may not be present. Frequently, the writer is not around to answer questions or clear vague points. So the reader expects that the writer has taken time and effort to minimize errors, misunderstanding, doubt, and confusion by being conscious of the mechanics, the diction and more importantly the content or the message that he/she wants to convey.

The written texts produced by the many writers, students and professionals alike, have been studied using different approaches. One of which is contrastive rhetoric, an area of applied linguistics which tries to distinguish composition problems encountered by L2 learners, as started by Kaplan in 1966. Contrastive rhetoric has been found to have practical applications in L2 writing classes and has maintained that language and L2 writing are influenced by the L1 culture (Connor, 1996). It tries to cross-culturally compare written discourse structures and text types, which eventually leads to understanding cultural differences in the writing process in the many professional situations. However, contrastive rhetoric has been criticized by those who claim that process is as important as product and by those who claim that it is insufficient to analyze only the surface structure of a text. Most especially, contrastive rhetoric has not been favorable to teachers who adopt only the process approach in writing (Leki, 1991). For the proponents of process-oriented approach to writing, contrastive rhetoric is limited to the investigation of product only, and it is prescriptive. For them, knowledge of L1 does not transfer to L2 writing because of the prescriptive approach to teaching writing like giving students model patterns to follow, which undeniably has been practiced by some composition teachers in the academe up to now.

Aside from the proponents who claim that process is just as good as the written output, there is also the emergence of another group of critics to contrastive rhetoric - those who claim that studying the surface structure of the text is insufficient. This claim was made because in the past, one of the thrusts in contrastive rhetoric studies was text linguistics which merely touched on items like grammar of the text, cohesion, etc. In other words, studies then involved textual orientation that is focused more on the product than the process that is involved in writing. However, this methodology on the study of surface structure lasted only till the 80’s through the works cited in Leki (1991). The studies and investigations done with regard to writing from the 80’s until today have sparked a new interest in the study of contrastive rhetoric.

Based on class sharing and discussion, it has been observed that in the academe today writing teachers are trying to practice the process approach to writing as much as they give importance to the written output. Composition teachers have become aware that before a writer comes up with a good writing piece, he/she must undergo some planning on what to write and how to present his/her ideas on paper. After planning and writing his/her thoughts on paper, the writer is encouraged to evaluate and revise his/her work whenever necessary. Relative to this, the most influential framework in the writing process is the work of Flower and Hayes (1981), who developed a cognitive theory of writing processes, in which they gathered information from students’ think-aloud protocols. They proposed a model that was based on three principles: processes of writing, such as planning, organizing, reviewing, and evaluating; writing follows a goal the writer is aware of; and processes are performed differently by experienced and inexperienced writers. Josef (1999) posited that the central concept to the teaching of writing is the dichotomy of the process in writing and the product in writing. The process of producing various types of written discourse is almost always affected by the writer’s knowledge about the topic, his awareness of the rhetorical skills, and how feedback are presented in the drafts of his/her work. A number of scholars have already conducted studies on writing that show multiple approaches to the process-product dichotomy. This only goes to show that a writing process is as important as its written product. Thus, if one would not undergo the abovementioned writing processes, he/she would not be able to produce a written output.

Today, written discourse structures have been studied using the cross-cultural approach in contrastive rhetoric. As a matter of fact, when Kaplan initiated the concept of contrastive rhetoric more than forty years ago, his study on thought cultural patterns then manifested cross-cultural differences found in paragraph organization. Although his initiative was criticized for a number of reasons, yet it was argued that differences in writing among the cultures studied reflect writing conventions which are learned in a particular culture. Contrastive rhetoric encourages that in studying written texts across cultures, it is important that the researcher goes beyond what is written on the surface to move into its rhetorical context (Leki, 1991). For it is argued that contrastive rhetoric studies have aided in the understanding not only of discourse and text structures, but more importantly in understanding the cultures of the students who are in our classrooms or of the writers in the professional field. Hence, claiming that doing a contrastive rhetoric study only involves the written product and the surface level of the text is moot and academic. (January 29, 2007)

• References:
• Connor, U. (1996). Contrastive rhetoric: Cross-cultural aspects of second language
  writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
• Flower, L., & Hayes, J. (1981). A cognitive process theory of writing. College Composition and Communication, 32, 365-387. Retrieved on January 28, 2008 from http://www.geocities.com/writing_site/thesis/references.html
• Josef, H. (1999). Advanced writing in EFL: A corpus-based study of processes and products. Retrieved on January 28, 2008 from http://www.geocities.com/writing_site/thesis/references.htm
• Leki, I. (1991). Twenty-five years of contrastive rhetoric: Text analysis and writing
  pedagogies., TESOL Quarterly. 25 (1), 123-143