Contrastive rhetoric

Level of study of the theme; 
Cultural differences in writing have been studied extensively within the 
field
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of contrastive rhetoric (CR) since Kaplan‘s, 1966 study
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. However, 
pedagogical applications of CR research have received much less attention. As 
3
Connor, Ulla. (2001). 
Contrastive Rhetoric: Cross-cultural Aspects of Second-language Writing
. Shanghai Foreign 
Language Education Press.
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Connor, U. 1996. Contrastive rhetoric. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Connor, U. (2002).New 
Directions in Contrastive Rhetoric. 
TESOL Quarterly,
4(36), 493-510. Matalene, C. 1985. Contrastive rhetoric: An 
American writing teacher in China. College English, 47/8,789-808. Kaplan, R. B. 1980. Cultural thought patterns in 
intercultural education. In K. Croft (Eds.), Readings on English 
as
a second language (pp. 213221). Toronto: Little, 
Brown and Company (Inc.). 
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Kaplan, R. (1966). Cultural thought Patterns in Inter-Cultural Education. 
Language Learning 
, 16, 1-20 

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Leki states
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in her review of 25 years of CR research, initial enthusiasm often led 
to simplistic pedagogical practices and prescriptive teaching, which tended to 
present the Anglo-American writing pattern as superior to others. In a more recent 
overview, Ostler notes
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that there are no studies on the effectiveness of 
applications of CR in the classroom. At the same time, recently there have been 
criticisms of some assumptions of CR research that may have negative pedagogical 
consequences, such as labelling students in terms of their national identities, the 
static view of cultures, ethnocentrism and essentialism
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. These authors raise 
concerns that an over-emphasis on cultural differences in the teaching of writing 
leads to the creation of stereotypes and that it reproduces the existing power 
relations between the West and ―the rest‖. Thus, designers of ESP and EAP writing 
programmes are faced with important pedagogical questions: first, whether culture 
specific elements of writing should be addressed, and, if so, what should be taught 
and how.