The Effects of Rhetorical Organization in Expository Prose on ESL Readers in Singapore

Abstract

This paper reports an experimental study carried out at the In stitute of Education in 1987 to find out the effects of rhetorical organization in expository prose on ESL readers in Singapore. The study was undertaken mainly to test the findings of a study by Carrell (1984) on ESL readers in USA. As an extension of the earlier study, which used foreign students at an American university as subjects, the present study incorporated three levels of language proficiency: school, college* and university graduates. Results of the study con firm two of the findings in the Carrell study: that different rhetorical organizations have differential effects on the recall of Singapore readers, and that readers who recognized and used the rhetorical organization of the original texts recalled more idea units in their recall protocols. The finding that readers with different native languages showed different recall patterns for the various rhetorical organizations is not confirmed in the present study. The paper dis cusses the findings with some possible explanations where the results do not confirm those of the earlier study, and also implications for further research.

Exploring How Rhetorical Organization Contributes to the Readability of Essays

“…According to the results of the cline procedure, the process essay was reported to be the easiest, followed by argumentation, contrast, narrative, and description. Although the purpose of this study was not to provide a taxonomy, these results offer an important contribution to rhetorical organization taxonomy literature (Carrell, 1984b;Fooh, 1989;Freedle & Kostin, 1991Goh, 1990;Lei, 2010;Meyer & Freedle, 1984;Sharp, 2002;Talbot et al, 1991;Yali & Jiliang, 2007;Zhang, 2008), as previous studies have not sufficiently reported the reading levels of texts and participants. This study also furthers the discussion as the essays (and accompanying analysis) are identified with terms commonly used in modern composition texts (i.e., process, description, narrative, cause/effect, comparison/contrast, and argumentation/persuasion), thus facilitating interpretation and replication.…”

“…Logical organizationwas again, as was done in the questionnaire, cited as a primary feature by eight (80%) of the informants (Annie, Ben, Eve, Harold, Jacob, Linda, Marsha, Nelson).Examining the informants' responses, their perceptions appeared to stem from an entangled mix of two causes: (a) the informants' awareness of (or lack of awareness of) the type of rhetorical organization exemplified in the essays and therhetorical organization of the essays themselves. Eve illustrated an example of both by demonstrating a strong awareness of rhetorical structure by naming the rhetorical organization of each essay, explaining that she felt each organization style was easier than the last.Eve's comments are related to previous taxonomy literature which reported that the logical organization of a text can impact readers' perceptions of difficulty (Bereiter, 1978 as cited in Calfee & Curley, 1984;Carrell, 1984a;Fooh, 1989;Freedle & Kostin 1991Goh, 1990;Lei, 2010;Meyer & Freedle, 1984;Lei, 2010;Sharp, 2002;Talbot, Ng, & Allan, 1991;Yali & Jiliang, 2007;Zhang, 2008).A second informant, Ben, further demonstrated how a lack of awareness can play a part.Discussing the contrast organization of the "Grammy Rewards" essay and the essay's place in his cline, he pointed out that he felt that the essay's point-by-point structure was hard to understand because "the two grandmothers show up in the same paragraph. "Ben's report supports literature which explains that a readers' "knowledge relative to the formal, rhetorical organizational structures of different types of texts" (Carrell 1987, p. 481) contributes to perceptions of difficulty.…”

A Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling Exploration of EFL Learners’ Perceptions of What Contributes to the Readability of Model Paragraphs

“…That is, some text types are more complex than others, learners’ awareness can affect understanding (Flick & Anderson, 1980), and rhetorical structures are not constant across cultures (Kaplan, 1966, 2005). Nevertheless, taxonomy explorations have attempted to provide as distinctive a picture as possible (see Alkhaleefah, 2017; Amiri et al, 2012; Baker, 2021; Carrell, 1984a; Freedle & Kostin, 1991, 1993; Goh, 1990; Lei, 2010; Meyer & Freedle, 1984; Putra, 2012; Saadatnia et al, 2016; Salmani, 2010; Sharp, 2002; Talbot et al, 1991; Yali & Jiliang, 2007; Zhang, 2008). However, the results have generally been incongruent due mostly to varying text types under study, methodology, and participants’ reading levels (Baker, 2021).…”