What question did this study set out to answer?

The aim is to understand how inherent rhetorical standards shape the evaluation of foreign-student compositions.

December 1, 1967

Contrastive Rhetoric and the Teaching of Composition

Key Points

The aim is to understand how inherent rhetorical standards shape the evaluation of foreign-student compositions.
Analysis of a cartoon illustrating archeological interpretation as a metaphor for judging foreign compositions.
Discussion of the implications of applying native language standards to second language writing.
Identified a gap between native rhetorical expectations and foreign compositions.
Highlighted the necessity for teachers to adjust their evaluation metrics to accommodate diverse rhetorical styles.

Abstract

The text of my sermon for today is drawn from a cartoon which appeared in the Publishers Newspaper Syndicate Sunday comics Grin and Bear It on February 2 of this year. The cartoon depicts an archeologist studying a stone covered with pictographs. Behind him are a fellow archeologist (both have bushy white mustaches, pith helmets, khaki shorts) and an Arab-looking individual. In the far distance one can see sand and a truck labeled Archeological Expedition, so that there can be no misunderstanding. The archeologist who is examining the stone remarks: If you ask me, it's overwritten! . . . Always using a paragraph where a simple sentence would do! Whether or not that is sound archeology, the speaker is exactly in the position of a teacher of English as a second language (or for that matter any teacher of any second language). He has done exactly what many of us do as we look at an advanced-level foreign-student composition; that is, he has judged the construction of the composition by the standards of the rhetoric which he takes for granted. But let me retrogress for a moment.

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