In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Pirsig (1974) – writing under the pseudonym Phaedrus – poses the following question to his composition students: “What is quality in thought and statement?” (p. 184).  Upon analysis, Pirsig and his students discover that quality is a complex term that resists definition.  Yet, due to their shared knowledge of the linguistic and rhetorical conventions of academic English writing, they describe quality using similar characteristics: “unity, vividness, authority, economy, sensitivity, clarity, emphasis, flow, suspense, brilliance, precision, proportion, depth, and so on” (p. 208).   Pirsig and his students determine that written discourse can either possess or lack this conception of quality, thereby creating a dichotomy between good writing and bad writing.  While Pirsig and his students acknowledge that individuals recognize quality or the lack thereof with relative ease, their own notions of the characteristics of quality are decidedly ethnocentric in nature.  Thus, texts they collectively designate as quality may be considered lacking by members of a different culture.  

The texts composed by second language (L2) writers are often incorrectly identified as bad writing because of the written “accent” that results from employing unconventional rhetorical structures valued by the culture to which they belong (McKay, 1989, p. 253).  Although initially criticized for a similar ethnocentrism that privileges the discourse of academic English, the emerging field of contrastive rhetoric widens Pirsig’s conception of quality to encompass the diverse styles and structures of written discourse valued by various cultures in different social contexts, thereby altering the perception that L2 writing lacks quality.  Despite this sensitivity to cultural differences, few studies in contrastive rhetoric have questioned the ethics of promoting “accent reduction” in L2 writing instruction, which effectually indoctrinates students into the ideology of the dominant culture.

As part of a collective project on responsible rhetoric, I explore the ethics of teaching quality to L2 writers, especially considering how the concept is inextricably bound to ideological forces.  I further establish the relationship between contrastive rhetoric and informed practice, arguing that L2 writers must not only learn the forms or patterns of texts but also be informed as to why these particular forms are valued in the culture.  In this way, L2 writers develop a sense of rhetorical consciousness, a necessary component of critical thinking and learning, and are therefore able to make informed decisions about the patterns of discourse they construct.

A Definition of Contrastive Rhetoric 

Although Kaplan’s notion of contrastive rhetoric has not been without its opponents, it has undeniably been responsible for shaping the development of L2 writing instruction (Connor, 1996).  Initially, Kaplan conceived of contrastive rhetoric as “a pedagogical solution to the problem of L2 organizational structures” (Matsuda, 1997, p. 45).  Based in the structuralist movement, the prevailing theory of language and language usage at the time, contrastive rhetoric served as a means to rationalize – and thereby improve – the “deviant” linguistic and rhetorical forms exhibited by L2 texts (Kaplan, 2001, p. xv).  In his original study, Kaplan (1966) reasoned that these unusual patterns of arrangement resulted from cultural influences and that an “examination of text alone [could] reveal the ‘thought patterns’ of the writer” (p. 4).  Hence, one of the most significant contributions of contrastive rhetoric has been emphasizing the role of culture in the act of writing. 

Although designed as a pedagogical tool, this early framework of contrastive rhetoric presented limitations for the composition classroom because it confined analysis to decontextualized forms.  Concurrently, limitations were recognized in the research conducted by structural linguists exploring topics such as generative rhetoric and sentence combining.  Faigley (1992) explains: “Without an elaborated semantic theory, the structural classifications seemed too idiosyncratic and arbitrary, as well as too vague, to be the basis of pedagogy” (p. 82).  Therefore, in the 1980s, contrastive rhetoric developed a framework labeled text linguistics, or written discourse analysis, which involves “an analysis of texts that extends beyond the sentence level and considers the communicative constraints of the situation” (Connor, 1996, p. 80).  This development was significant for addressing the communicative nature of writing and incorporating “methods of analyzing cohesion, coherence, and the discourse superstructure of texts” (Connor, 2002, p. 496).  However, research in text linguistics was still largely decontextualized.  As a result, the growing body of research in contrastive rhetoric began to have fewer and fewer pedagogical applications.

The most recent manifestation of contrastive rhetoric incorporates much of the theory that has influenced the evolution of first language (L1) writing, such as the theories of cognition, process, and social constructivism.  In her book chronicling its historical development, Connor (1996) states, “A broader definition [of contrastive rhetoric] that considers cognitive and sociocultural variables of writing in addition to linguistic variables has been substituted for a purely linguistic framework interested in structural analyses of products” (p. 18).  Yet, despite these advancements, the field of contrastive rhetoric has been slow to integrate postmodern theories into its research framework, thereby hindering its development as a critical pedagogy. 

That being said, there have been studies discussing the future of the field in light of postmodern theory and the way it problematizes the traditional, static way of conceptualizing culture, the cornerstone of contrastive rhetoric.  Connor (2002) has recognized the “need to articulate a current research framework for contrastive rhetoric, especially regarding changing definitions of culture” (p. 494).  Similarly, Atkinson (2002) admits that contrastive rhetoric “has been saddled for years with a received notion of culture that quite simply does not allow a flexible, dynamic, and continuous way of looking at texts, either L1 or L2” (p. 57).  According to Atkinson, contrastive rhetoric – and L2 writers – would benefit from a framework that would “situate L2 writing more deeply and complexly in the modern (or post-modern – some might also add ‘post-cultural’) world” (p. 51).

In the following sections, I attempt to articulate the foundations of such a framework.  First, I explore the avenues in applied linguistics, as well as in studies of rhetoric and composition, that influenced the initial framework of contrastive rhetoric.  I then discuss how the emergence of post-structuralism ignited a revision of traditional conceptions of contrastive rhetoric by appreciating how complex the terms “culture” and “genre” truly are.  Finally, I consider how issues of rhetorical ethics and response-ibility are integral for the transformation of contrastive rhetoric into a critical pedagogy.