The Myth of the “Turn” in Contrastive Rhetoric

Abstract

Contrastive rhetoric scholarship researches rhetorical structures across languages to predict the difficulties experienced by students learning to write essays in a second language. The paradigmatic contrast is between Western languages (e.g., English) that are said to exemplify "linearity" and "directness" and Eastern languages (e.g., Chinese, Japanese) that are said to exemplify "nonlinearity" and "indirectness." The prime examples in English-language contrastive rhetoric scholarship of Asian essay structure are the four-part Chinese qi cheng zhuan he and Japanese ki sho ten ketsu, whose third steps are said to represent a "turn." The author's research into Chinese and Japaneselanguage scholarship on these two structures finds that the "turn" is not a rhetorical move of "circularity" or "digression" as commonly assumed but rather serves as the occasion to develop an essay further by alternative means. The implication for secondlanguage writing is recognition of greater similarities in essayist literacy across these languages than previously supposed.

Instruction and reading samples for opinion writing in L1 junior high school textbooks in China and Japan

“…Paralleling Kirkpatrick (1997), most of the reading materials also demonstrate an introduction-body-conclusion pattern that contains a main point, supporting details, and a logical presentation of ideas. This finding supports previous observations that the four-unit style is being replaced in modern Chinese and Japanese texts by a three-unit pattern (Cahill, 2003). The Chinese samples reflected instruction in various organizational patterns (i.e., placing an opinion in the beginning, middle, or end) in that the opinion statement of the examined texts was found either at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end.…”

“…Indeed the dynamic, diverse, and political aspect of rhetoric is a primary focus among the critics of monolithic depictions of cultural rhetoric. Many have questioned the essentialization of Chinese or Japanese rhetoric, calling for a more descriptive understanding of rhetoric, more diverse interpretations, and attention to rhetorical shifts prompted by cross-cultural contacts, which often make academic writing appear similar across societies and languages (Bloch & Chi, 1995;Cahill, 2003;Kirkpatrick, 1997;Kubota, 1997;Mohan & Lo, 1985;Taylor & Chen, 1991). For example, Cahill (2003) and Kubota (1997) pointed out multiple interpretations of the four-unit style in China and Japan, some of which actually correspond to English-type rhetoric.…”

“…However, the above representation of Asian languages and Asian students engaging in cross-cultural/linguistic writing has been criticized as constructing ideological labels to describe multilingual students (Spack, 1997a) and has attracted scrutiny from various fronts: a perspective emphasizing the agency of individual student writers (e.g., Spack, 1997aSpack, , 1997bZamel, 1997), the crucial role of the context behind a text, rather than cultural orientation, in reading comprehension (McCagg, 1996), the existence of linguistic/rhetorical diversity within a language (Kachru, 1999;Kowal, 1998), and a rhetorical convergence of Asian languages into English (Bloch & Chi, 1995;Cahill, 2003;Hirose, 2003;Kirkpatrick, 1997;Kobayashi & Rinnert, 2002;Kubota, 1997Kubota, , 1998Mohan & Lo, 1985;Shi, 2002;Taylor & Chen, 1991). 2 Some of these studies incorporate a more comprehensive examination of the historical and contemporary role of prescriptive rhetorical styles.…”

Argumentation Text Construction by Japanese as a Foreign Language Writers: A Dynamic View of Transfer

“…Whether ki‐shō‐ten‐ketsu can be applied to academic essay writing or not has been a long‐term, unresolved controversy (Cahill, ; Kinoshita, ). Janet's view appears to side with scholars advocating a new reinterpretation of ki‐shō‐ten‐ketsu .…”

Rhetorical Strategies in Chinese and English: A Comparison of L1 Composition Textbooks

“…What is more, Chinese's qǐ‐chéng‐zhuăn‐hé and English's introduction‐body‐conclusion are reported to share more similarities than differences (Cahill, 2003; Chou, 1989; Mo, 1985). After examining the literature on zhuăn by Chinese rhetoricians, Cahill (2003) summarized the functions of zhuăn , which are to develop chéng , provide a place for the thesis statement, provide a second argument for the claim, and present a counterexample. None of these functions can be said to cause circularity.…”