ComparingDifferentRhetoricStructurebetweenVariousLanguagesfromCulturalAspects

【Abstract】In this article， five modes of rhetoric structure will be demonstrated at first. Then comparison studies on different rhetoric structures between various languages will be analyzed and evaluated. Through these comparisons， it can be concluded that people from different cultures have varied expectations on text organizations， which will have a more or less impact on their reading or writing.

【Key words】genre； rhetoric structure； cultural aspects

【作者簡介】潘春，魯迅美術學院大連校區。

I. Introduction： Five Modes of Rhetoric Structure

In 1966， Kaplan performed a very representative study on writing and reading. The primary purpose of this study is to show the difference of genre between various languages from cultural aspect. Kaplan compared rhetoric structures of English paragraphs with other four languages （Arab， Korean， French and Russian） in that study. Most of the materials （except the case of Arab） he selected were the English composition which written by students from different countries. After investigation， Kaplan concluded five famous modes of rhetoric structure， they are：

1. Linear structure： this is the main features of English expository prose. The author constructs the opinions “in a straight line” from top to bottom of the composition.

2. Parallel structures： paragraphs in Arab language are organized by a serious of complicated parallel patterns

3. Oriental structure： In Korean or Chinese articles， the topic will be presented indirectly by the author from different aspect which looks unrelated with each other.

4. Romans structure： in the article written by French or Spanish， paragraphs are “freedom to digress and to introduce extraneous material”.

5. Russian： the paragraphs of Russian are composed by short sentences and very long complex sentence with digressed style.

II. Comparison and Evaluation

The results showed that students from different countries have different expectations on the English expository text. After this study， many researchers （Hinds， 1983） began to notice and make a further research on rhetoric of genre in ESL/EFL learning from different sociology or linguistic aspects. Each study offered a new contribution to the field of studying genre in second language learning. Because these studies were investigated based on different materials and different languages， it can not be compared to find out which one is more valuable. However， on the whole， whether contrast cohesive strategies， cohesions， syntactic patterns or rhetoric structures， the primary studying area of these researches was focused on paragraphs rather than a whole text.

Depending on this problem， Hinds （1983a， b） retook contrast rhetoric studies on Japanese and German with English academic writing respectively. Hinds （1983a，b） primarily addressed on three structure patterns of Japanese： “return to baseline theme”， “the tempura model”， and “ki-sho-ten-ketsu”. The main aim of his study is to test unity （“logical development and procedure of thought”）， focus （“staying on a topic without wandering”） and coherence （“sticking together of primary theme of writing； use of transition”）. The result is that the organizational patterns of Japanese and English are quite different. Comparing with the general-specific pattern， Japanese students like to use specific-general pattern more. Clyne （1987） conducted his study between German and English academic text and whole book from four aspects， “Hierarchy of text”， “Dynamics of text”， “Symmetry and uniformity”. The consequence is that the German text structure is more digression compared with English academic text and books.

Oslter （1987） also conducted an investigation on different rhetoric structure between English and Arab from cultural aspect. Twenty one expository essays written by Saudi Arabian students and English native speakers were used as the materials for contrasting. The methods Oslter（1987） used to compare the materials were Tunit and Discours Bloc. The result is that there are distinguished differences between Arab and English. Arab writers like to employ a “superordinate， generally universal statement” as the topic statement at the beginning of the text. Moreover， Arab writers seem like to use longer main clause to express their opinions. However， even if the English native speakers utilized coordinate clause to present point of view， the form they applied to organized the structure of the sentence is quite different with the Arabians.

Finally， the study on text structure of writing needed to be described is a research conducted by Eggington （1987）. Eggington （1987） contrasted the text structure difference between English and Korean. Eggington primarily addressed on studying two kinds of Korean texts. One is Korean academic written text “return to baseline theme”. The other is the Korean academic text with features of English. The participants were composed by thirty-seven Korean adults. Among which， twenty-eight were the college students of Korean， and the other nine were mature adults. The material selected by Eggington （1987） is two paragraphs from different articles in the Korean Journal of Public Administration. The rhetoric structure of one of these paragraphs is non-linear style of Korean academic pattern. The participants were categorized into two groups. One of these groups was asked to read the paragraphs with the non-linear text. The other group request to read the other Korean academic paragraphs with English mode. All the participants required to write recalls as much as they can after they read two minutes they read. Then a week later， the participants need to receive another test. In addition， before the subjects leaving， they required to rewrite the recalls they have done a week before. After investigation， Eggington （1987） found that the Korean college students have difficulties comprehending of Korean academic text with English mode.

III. Conclusion

In brief， although all the studies on ESL/EFL learning listed above have various subjects， materials， and specific purposes， the general features of these studies aspired to prove are the common. These general characteristics are： firstly， all of these researches more or less attested that people from different language have different expectation on the text organization； and these text structure of the first language will continue to be applied when they learning another language. Secondly， the reason which may cause these problems may be the cultural difference between different countries.

References：

[1]Clyne，M.1987.Cultural Differences in the Organization of Academic Texts.Journal of Pragmatics，11，211-247.

[2]Kaplan，R.B.1966.Cultural thought patterns in inter-cultural education.Language Learning XVI：1-20.

[3]Hinds，J.1983a.Contrastive rhetoric：Japanese and English.Text，3（2）： 183-195.

[4]Hinds，J.1983b.Linguistics and written discourse in English and Japanese：A contrastive study.Annual Review of Applied Linguistics， 3：78-84.

[5]Eggington，W.G.1987 Written Academic Discourse in Korean： Implications for Effective Communication.In U.Connor，&R.B.Kaplan; （Eds.），Writing Across Languages：Analysis of L2 Text（pp.153-168）. Reading，MA：Addison-Wesley.