Contrastive Rhetoric : Language Transfer from Japanese to English in Writing

Abstract

This article examines the linguistic transfer of writing strategies from first language (L1) to second language (L2) in writing. Contrastive rhetoric studies have become considerably more complex over the last 25 years and are explored in a number of the different directions related to written discourse across cultures. The beginning of this article will provide an overview of recent studies in contrastive rhetoric. The written discourse of four Japanese speakers will be closely examined, analyzing sentence structure and organization. The different organizations of the English paragraph are discussed from a cultural perspective, while the different structure of sentence is approached from a linguistic perspective. The study shows that L1 writing strategies influence L2 writing even though the subjects are advanced students who seem to know English rhetoric well. Lastly, I will mention the pedagogical implications of contrastive rhetoric studies in the current writing instruction in Japan.