Week 6. Culture and written discourse.

 There are distinctions in the features of texts in relation to both patterns and styles that writers of different languages and cultures produce.
I believe it is crucial for a TESOL educator to be aware of L1 influence in L2 students' English writing. Model essays that would show the contrast in organizational patterns as well as introduction to  journal writing are among successful approaches to teach  L2 students to explore cultural differences in L2 writing. I agree with Yoshimura that teaching the form of an English argumentative essay including such moments as the organizational pattern, coherence structure, and argumentative patterns are just as helpful and important as focus on the process and content of the essay.
Thus, exposing L2 writing conventions to L2 learners and making these conventions explicit is important for understanding the cross-cultural differences in writing.
Whorfian interpretaion of rhetorical patterns reflecting patterns of thinking in L1 and Kaplan's five types of paragraph development can be named as the beggining in contrastive rhetorics research. The research in contrastive rhetorics in the late 30-odd years proved that all groups engage in a variety types of writing depending on the genre. However, Kaplan's earlier model is useful as it reflected college students' essays. For a TESOL educator, it can give some basic insight while keeping in mind that there is more to it.
Would you agree that linearity, clarity and coherence are the basic features of Western writing while  dynamic and fluidness are Japanese's?
I liked the idea that contrastive rhetorics research is similar to intercultural pragmatics analysis as this comparison makes it clear that contrastive research is not only about the first language or the national culture.
 
Japanese culture by Kubota
Explicit teaching through a discourse convention  and creation of rhetorical pluralism in the mainstream English discourse community were two pedagogical implications of the recent studies on L2 writing and critical thinking for academic purposes. However, the perspectives of poststructuralist and postcolonial critique as well as pedagogical perspectives from critical multiculturialism and literacy have revisited the taken-for-granted cultural differences.  Instead, these differences should be viewed in the discourse in which this particular knowledge is constructed and contested. It is obvious that this critique of cultural differences confirms the belief that ESL/EFL teachers should critically examine them. I have always tried not to approach my students as representatives of monolithic, unidimentional culture. Moreover, it is important to remember that culture also has political and ideological implications to it as in the case of the Other which is constructed by colonial discourse.
Thus, by critical examination of the target culture and the culture of (a) particular student(s), TESOL educators will not stereotype the individual students based on their culture of origin.