A Reaction against Audiolingualism

Kaplan (1966) conceived of contrastive rhetoric during the time that structuralism dominated theories of language.  Structuralism focused on the construction of binary oppositions such as good/bad, right/wrong, and presence/absence (Saussure, 1959).  Under this binary framework, written language was considered to be of a lesser truth – of a lesser quality – than oral language.  In other words, writing was equated with absence, while speech was equated with presence.  Influenced by this theory of language, audiolingualism, the principal method of L2 instruction at the time, targeted the development of the student’s listening and speaking skills through oral drills concentrating on the patterns of English syntactic structure and on the native-like pronunciation of English phonetics.  Kaplan’s notion of contrastive rhetoric reversed this hierarchy between oral and written language by focusing exclusively on written texts.

Another aspect of structuralism incorporated into the audiolingual method of L2 instruction was its emphasis on the sentence, as opposed to the paragraph or the entire text.  In the audiolingual method, students participated in short dialogues where they rarely produced discourse beyond the sentence level.  In response to this perceived shortcoming of audiolingualism, Kaplan adapted Christensen’s (1965) “Generative Rhetoric of the Paragraph” to the analysis of L2 texts, thereby introducing extended units of discourse to L2 instruction.  Kaplan (2001) explains that contrastive rhetoric “was intended to move [L2] learners beyond the memorization of dialogues, beyond regurgitation of set patterns, beyond exclusive concern with grammatical accuracy, and beyond concern only with the sentence (p. viii).

Although Kaplan rejected these tenets of structuralism, he did preserve two of them:  a focus on error correction and a focus on form.

An Influence of Error Analysis

The binary oppositions established in structuralism are evident in the initial phase of contrastive rhetoric, particularly in how the good/bad opposition was used to analyze L2 texts.  Contrastive rhetoric was developed as a means to identify the patterns of paragraph development in the expository essays of L2 writers in university-level composition courses.  These patterns were analyzed in terms of how they differed from the expectations of the readers, presumed to be native English-speaking teachers, who characterized the texts as bad. 

Thus, during this phase, contrastive rhetoric emphasized error correction, which stemmed from the practices of contrastive analysis and error analysis in L2 acquisition.  While contrastive analysis merely compares the similar features of two languages, error analysis looks at how an individual’s L1 interferes with – or is negatively transferred to – his or her production of L2 (Gass & Selinker, 2001).  Although the audiolingual method confined error analysis to phonetics and phonology, contrastive rhetoric expanded its domain to include not only oral language but written language as well.  Connor (1996) explains:

Contrastive rhetoric, like contrastive analysis, began as an effort to improve [L2 writing] pedagogy, and it’s adherents believed that interference from L1 was the biggest problem in L2 acquisition.  It was initially founded on error analysis; ‘errors’ in beginning-level students’ paragraph organization were examined and reasons for them were hypothesized based on the language background from which the student came. (p. 14-15) 

Kaplan believed that identifying the reasons students were making errors would facilitate their production of good, quality writing.

A Current-Traditional Model

In addition to error correction, early contrastive rhetoric was preoccupied with another precept of structuralism: form.  This focus on form was also found in the current-traditional model of composition instruction, the dominant pedagogical model at the time.  As Crowley (1998) acknowledges rather bluntly, “What matters most in current-traditional rhetoric is form” (p. 95).  Silva (1990) establishes this connection by referring to Kaplan’s notion of contrastive rhetoric as “the [English as a second language] ESL version of current-traditional rhetoric … [because it] is basically a matter of arrangement, of fitting sentences and paragraphs into prescribed patterns” (p. 13-14). 

Composition theorists like Crowley (1998) have criticized the current-traditional pedagogy as a “theory of graphic display” for its failure to promote critical thinking or to consider how sociocultural issues of ideology and power are reinforced through writing instruction (p. 96).  This sentiment can be found in Pirsig’s (1974) sarcastic description of the instructional model implemented in a typical composition classroom:

What you’re supposed to do in most freshman-rhetoric courses is to read a little essay or short story, discuss how the writer has done certain little things to achieve certain little effects, and then have the students write an imitative little essay or short story to see if they can do the same little things. (p. 176)

Herndl (1993) offers a similar criticism of professional writing instruction, which also largely operates in the current-traditional model, stating it “will produce students who are ignorant of the ideological development of discourse and who cannot perceive the cultural consequences of a dominant discourse or the alternate understandings it excludes” (p. 350).  Even with such criticism, current-traditional pedagogy has survived, and some would argue even flourished, in the pages of composition textbooks and syllabi.  Silva (1990) states that “one could make a strong case for the notion that the current-traditional approach is still dominant in ESL writing materials and classroom practices today” (p. 15). 

Matters of form are undoubtedly essential to L2 writing instruction since arrangement is an integral component for constructing a rhetorical argument.  For example, Hyland (2003) speaks to the importance of form in discourse analysis, which serves “to study the meanings learners are trying to express through their choice and arrangement of forms.”  What differs in Hyland’s description of form, however, is the sense of agency awarded to the writer.  Such agency is not possible if the writer lacks rhetorical awareness, a skill neglected by current-traditional pedagogy.