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Jai Hee Cho
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A Dissertation
Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green
State University in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
May 1999
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Committee:
Shirley E. Ostler, Advisor
Richard Gebhardt
Virginia Martin
Donna Nelson-Beene
Kristie Foell, Graduate Faculty Representative
copyright 1999
Jai Hee Cho
All Rights Reserved
This study intended to develop a theoretical support for modern contrastive rhetoric which used to be recognized as ˇ®notion.' The study examined current perspectives of contrastive rhetoric which has been established around the Sapir-Whofian hypothesis and applied linguistics. Noting that the negligence of formal rhetorical aspects in the definition of contrastive rhetoric has resulted in a field being grounded on ˇ®notion,' this dissertation asserts that contrastive rhetoric should be developed as a theory. Comparing rhetorical aspects of Confucianism in East Asia with Aristotelian rhetoric in the United States, this work suggests that current contrastive rhetoric should expand its research area by exploring origins of cultural, philosophical, social, and educational characteristics which have influenced rhetorical styles of written texts in many different languages and cultures. In working toward an extensive support for the development of a contrastive rhetoric theory, this dissertation explored culturally-embedded world views, ways of thinking and logic, major concepts and precepts in Confucianism for East Asian culture and classical Greek thought and rhetoric for the North American culture, and explained how those various characteristics have influenced the rhetorical styles of written texts for the respective and very different cultures. To test statistically the above rhetorical differences between the two cultures, a corpus of fifty expository essays written by Korean students in Korean, a representative of East Asian languages and cultures, and of another fifty essays written by native English speaker students in English were collected and examined. Based on the findings of this quantitative research, brief pedagogical implications are suggested.
This dissertation is dedicated to my mother, Mi Yang Park and Dr. Shirley E. Ostler.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I express many thanks to my dissertation advisor, Dr. Shirley E. Ostler for guiding me throughout the process of writing this dissertation. I am especially grateful for her steady savant and insightful advice and for the countless hours she spent for reading and editing this work. Most of all, I thank her for her mental support which she showed me by telling me various painful stories about herself when I almost collapsed emotionally. I am also thankful to Dr. Virginia S. Martin for her making valuable suggestions and support. Special thanks also go to the other members of my dissertation committee ? Drs. Richard Gebhardt, Donna Nelson-Beeene, and Kristie Foell for their support.
I also thank Prof. Tae Ok Kim at So Gang University and Dr. Hyon Ho Lee at Dong Yang College for their helping me obtain the Korean student essays used in this study. Specially thanks are also extended to Dr. Mary K. Crouch and Dr. Heping Zhao at California State University, Fullerton, for their helpful and critical suggestions. I want to thank Rev. Tae Jun Lee for his friendship and encouragement. In the end, I must thank my father, two brothers, and a sister for their support.
TABLE OF CONTENTS Page
PREFACE................................................................................................... xi
CHAPTER I. THE BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Statement of the Problem ................................................................. 1
Contrastive Rhetoric ........................................................................ 6
The Beginning of Modern Contrastive Rhetoric.................. 6
The Theoretical Foundation for Contrastive Rhetoric ........ 8
The Notion of Contrastive Rhetoric .................................... 12
The Research Areas of Contrastive Rhetoric ....................... 15
Major Findings of Contrastive Rhetoric Regarding
East Asian Culture ................................................... 20
Limitations of Current Contrastive Rhetoric Research ....... 32
Importance of the Study .................................................................. 34
The Value of Culture and Philosophy in Contrastive Rhetoric..35
Contrastive Rhetoric Emerging from Notion to Theory ...... 37
The Major Rhetorical Differences between East Asian, and Anglo-European and North American Cultures ................................. 38
A Brief Description of the Quantitative Research Design ................... 44
Research Questions .................................................................. 45
Assumptions, Constraints, and Delimitations .......................... 46
Notes ........................................................................................ 48
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CHAPTER II. CONFUCIAN INFLUENCE ON EAST ASIAN RHETORIC
AND COMPOSITION ......................................................................... 49
Confucius ............................................................................................. 49
Confucianism ....................................................................................... 52
Confucianism in China, Korea, and Japan ............................... 60
Essential Rhetorical Assumptions of Confucianism ............... 61
Major Confucian Principles and Doctrine Related to Rhetoric .......... 65
In (Humanity, Love) ................................................................ 66
Li (Propriety, Rites) ................................................................ 70
Chung Yong ( The Doctrine of the Mean) .............................. 74
The Confucian Learning Process ........................................................ 77
Thinking, Learning, and Meditating ....................................... 82
Rhetoric and Confucianism ................................................................. 86
Rhetorical Aspects of the Analects .......................................... 90
The Characteristics of East Asian Rhetoric ............................. 94
Rhetorical Styles of East Asian Writing .................................. 97
CHAPTER III. ARISTOTELIAN RHETORICAL TRADITIONS IN
THE UNITED STATES ..................................................................... 101
Development of Western Way of Thinking in Ancient Greece ........... 102
Pre-Socratic Period ................................................................... 104
Post-Socratic Period ................................................................ 110
Plato's Formalistic Concept of the Good ............................................. 112
Aristotle's Concept of Causality ........................................................... 117
The Influence of Classical Greek Rhetoric on Western Europe
and the United States ............................................................... 120
Sophistic Rhetoric and Plato's Rejection of Sophistic Rhetoric .......... 122
Aristotle's Rhetoric ................................................................................ 128
A Synopsis of Aristotle's Rhetoric ............................................ 128
Aristotle's Invention .................................................................. 132
Relationship of Rhetoric with Dialectic ..................................... 138
Aristotle's Arrangement of Speech/Writing with Enthymeme
and Example ................................................................... 141
Aristotelian Influence on Rhetoric and Composition
in the United States..........................................................144
Rhetoric before Current Traditional Rhetoric ............................ 144
Current Traditional Rhetoric ...................................................... 147
New Rhetoric and Composition after 1970's ............................ 152
Characteristics of Tradition of English Composition
in the United States ................................................................... 158
CHAPTER IV. QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH ON STUDENTS'
EXPOSITORY ESSAYS ....................................................................... 161
Description of the Study ........................................................................ 161
Description of Research Design ............................................................. 162
Subjects .................................................................................................162
Korean Student Essays ............................................................ 163
Native English Speaker Student Essays ................................... 165
Controlling Variables ........................................................................... 165
The Issues of the Novice Writer .............................................. 165
Cultural Exposure .................................................................... 167
The Fluency of Second/Foreign Language .............................. 169
Essay Production Situation ...................................................... 170
Collection of Materials ......................................................................... 173
Korean Student Essays ............................................................. 173
Native English Speaker Student Essays in the United States .. 174
Methodology ........................................................................................ 174
Problems in Providing Data on Word Counting Measures ...... 175
Adjusting the T-units ................................................................ 176
Adjusting the Discourse Bloc ................................................... 177
Decision of Thesis Statement ................................................... 178
Recording .............................................................................................. 179
Transcribing the Data .............................................................. 180
Tabulation of the Data ............................................................ 181
Processing .......................................................................................... 185
Findings ............................................................................................. 186
The Whole Essay .................................................................. 186
Thesis Statement ................................................................... 189
Paragraph ............................................................................ 191
Frequency of Topic Changes and Topic sentences in the Body
Paragraphs ................................................................... 194
Results ............................................................................................... 199
Response to the Research Questions .................................... 201
CHAPTER V. SUMMARY, CONCLUSION, AND PEDAGOGICAL
IMPLICATIONS ................................................................................ 204
Summary of Potential Benefits of This Study ................................... 204
Contributions to Contrastive Rhetoric Research ................. 204
Recommendations for Further Research .............................. 209
Brief Pedagogical Implications for East Asian ESL Writers ............ 211
BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................... 219
APPENDIX ................................................................................................... 243
LIST OF FIGURES
Figures Page
1 Confucian Context of Practicing Ethos ..................................................... 55
2 Plato's Hierarchical Structure of the Concept of the Good ........................ 114
3 Aristotle's Systematic Structure of Four Causes .......................................... 118
4 Hierarchical Structure of Aristotle's Rhetoric .............................................. 131
5 Korean Student Essay 35 (KSE 35) ........ ....................................................184
6 Native English Speaker Student Essay 36 (ASE 36) ................................... 185
7 An Example of Paragraph Pattern in KSE 29 ............................................... 197
8 An Example of Paragraph Pattern in ASE 16 ............................................... 198
LIST OF TABLES
Table Page
1 Distribution of Generality/Specificity in Introduction,
Body, and Conclusion in KSE ......................................................... 187
2 Distribution of Generality/Specificity in Introduction,
Body, and Conclusion in ASE ......................................................... 188
3 Comparative Presence and Placement of Thesis Statement in KSE and ASE .189
4 Distribution of Paragraphs in KSE and ASE ..................................... ........... 192
5 Number of Paragraphs per Essay Shown in ASE and ASE ............................. 192
6 The Number of Body Paragraphs and the Average Number of Topic
Sentences in KSE and ASE ................................................................. 195
7 The Number of Topic Changes Found in Body Paragraphs .......................... 195
8 Presence and Placement of Topic Sentences in Body
Paragraph in KSE and ASE ................................................................. 196
This study takes as its main perspective the cultural approach to contrastive rhetoric and maintains that writing is composing, that composing is a type of thinking, and that ways of thinking are largely determined by cultural elements such as the major philosophies, religion, and the mode of education valued in any particular culture (Rodby 1992). To illustrate the influence of cultural and rhetorical elements on writing, a comparison is made between those elements from which East Asian styles developed and those from which English (mainly the United States) styles derived. For the purpose of this study, East Asia is defined as China, Korea, and Japan.
Since language influences and is influenced by its culture, its rhetoric and writing style preferences are culturally embedded. In other words, the formation of rhetoric and composition cannot be stated separately from the culture from which it emerges. Accordingly, learning to use the rhetoric and composition preferences of a second language requires the understanding and the ability to use patterns of writing shaped by its culturally embedded thought patterns. Without doing so, the second language writer may experience serious difficulties in applying appropriate rhetorical patterns to the construction of his/her second language essays. When teaching literacy in a second language, educators should consider the learner's cultural backgrounds which have shaped his/her native ways of thinking and writing. Then they develop pedagogy for guiding him/her to employ acceptable rhetorical patterns when constructing essays in a second language.
However, ESL literacy theory and instruction have rarely acknowledged the diverse cultural backgrounds of the ESL writers. It is common that when new international students arrive in US academia, writing instructors simply assume that the students will employ the English rhetorical styles to their English essays without much consideration of their ˇ®cultural baggage,' or the fact that newcomers are not familiar with these styles. The result is that these students still think and write in English using the styles admired in their own native languages when they actually need to switch the rhetorical patterns from those used in their native language to those of English in order to write an acceptable English essay. To do this, they must have assistance from an instructor who knows both the cultural and rhetorical differences between the students' native language and English.
Up until now, few English/ESL writing instructors have been familiar with cultural and rhetorical differences which ESL writers bring to the US academia. Not only do many instructors know little about the ESL students' native cultures but many ESL instructors (and other Westerners as well) believe that logic is universal so it never occurs to them to consider there are differences. So they ask their students to mechanically adopt linear rhetorical patterns to their own English essays. Unfortunately, because patterns of logic are not universal and because native writing patterns are culturally and cognitively embedded, ESL writers still think and therefore write in the way they do in their native language. Consequently their essays turn out often to be unacceptable: acquiring appropriate English rhetorical styles requires these students initially to adapt to or acquire completely different ways of thinking when they communicate in English. This is because the traditions of their own cultures are very different from those which produce the Western style of thought derived from the Aristotelian logic which promotes causal thinking. Many ESL writers are actually unable to apply this style to their writing. This is especially true of many ESL students from East Asian countries such as China, Korea, and Japan whose main way of thinking tends to be based on the Confucian principles and is correlative. Because of cultural influences, reality presented in language tends to be pictographic, and their writing is largely dependent on image clustering. On the other hand, the North American culture prefers causal thinking: its rhetorical style is comparatively linear. As a result, students from East Asian countries often become convinced that the mastering of English writing is beyond their reach.
The differences between causal and correlative thinking and direct and indirect styles of rhetorics are germinated from the respective and quite different traditions of the two groups of cultures. Over the two millennia before the nineteenth century, East Asia rarely had contact with Anglo-European and North American countries except in a few particular cases. Thus, the two different cultures developed different rhetorics and practices as a result of favoring their own distinct philosophies, religions, and educational systems. According to Oliver (1995), the East is not the West:
Cultures differ, and minds, feelings, and intentions in differing society intermesh in different ways. Discourse occurs, or is constrained, under different circumstances and has different style for different reasons. The standards of rhetoric in the West which have had a unitary development since their identification by Aristotle are not universal (355).
Oliver's insight into cultural differences is revealing. Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism have shaped the culture of East Asia, and among these three, Confucianism, the dominant national ideology in the history of East Asian countries for more than two thousand years, is the most influential: social structures, political ethics, educational systems, and even language have been shaped largely based on Confucianism. East Asian rhetoric also has been largely formulated by Confucianism (Yum 1987). On the other hand, although diversity is the word that is frequently used to describe Anglo-European and North American culture in some contexts, it is generally acknowledged that Hellenism and Christianity are two major contributors to the development of rhetoric in Western culture. Between them, Aristotelian rhetoric in Hellenism is considered to be the initiator of North American rhetoric and composition (Neel 1994). Comparing key concepts and precepts of Confucianism with Aristotelian rhetorical traditions, there are more differences than similarities between the two philosophies. The same event/issue can be viewed, interpreted, and expressed differently according to the respective culture. Confucian cardinal principles and Aristotelian rhetorical traditions have formulated the ways of thinking and of rhetorical practices in their respective cultures, and student essays in each of these cultures may display the characteristics of their own culture's rhetorical styles.
Thus, exploring the foundations of rhetorical styles of East Asian and North American cultures is important because, with pedagogically appropriate training, the English/ESL writing instructor can prepare those crossing cultures to recognize this style, and what has caused the writer to produce this type of writing. The instructor can help the East Asian ESL writer recognize the thought patterns and rhetorical styles of their own native languages and those of English writing respectively. This kind of instruction will enable language learners to adopt the more acceptable English rhetorical patterns in their English essays. Process-oriented pedagogy also can help the ESL language learner cultivate appropriate ways of thinking and rhetorical patterns in the course of learning English writing. The process writing approach provides the ESL writing teacher with strategies to successfully intervene in and then guide the students' invention process and arrangement to follow the rhetorical patterns expected in American academic prose. The ability to use appropriate English rhetorical styles in the English essay is crucial in the sense that the ESL writer must meet the expectations of the US academic audience.
Naturally, the purpose of this study is to find the essentials of the distinctive rhetorical patterns which appear in the student expository essays from Korea and from North America, and to describe them. The findings from this study provides data with which to demonstrate the differences in the writing styles produced in the two cultures. Later, suggestions of pedagogical implications will be made for the ESL/English writing instructor. In so doing, Chapter One reviews, first, what contrastive rhetoric has achieved for the past thirty years. Many contrastive rhetoricians such as Kaplan, Ostler, Hinds, and Eggington have explored differences of rhetoric and composition among diverse cultures. Second, while this study intends to broaden the field of contrastive rhetoric, it attempts to change the foundation of contrastive rhetoric from notion to theory by including a description of the world view assumption and rhetorical preferences which each culture developed. For example, East Asian philosophies consider that there is no unity of rules in the world, but instead that the world is nothing but ten thousand things. The assumption is that the world consists of "a set of foci" (Hall and Ames 1995). This philosophical assumption greatly affects the thought patterns of the East Asian people. Chapter Two covers a few of the major Confucian concepts and precepts in the East Asian culture and their influences on East Asian rhetoric and rhetorical styles of writing. In particular, the Confucian cardinal principles of In ( , love, humanity, or benevolence) as content and li ( , propriety, rites, or rituals) as form are then explored and explicated. In addition to this, this chapter will look at how the doctrine of the mean (that is moderation and harmony) influences the forming of East Asian rhetoric. Finally, Chapter Two illustrates East Asian rhetorical styles as they occur in Korean students' essays.
In order to compare rhetorical aspects of Confucianism with those of Aristotelian rhetoric, Chapter Three presents analogies of the philosophical and theoretical foundations of North American rhetoric and composition. At the beginning of this chapter, the development of the Western way of thinking will be reviewed. It follows on the fact that Western philosophies have been developed under an assumption that the cosmos can be comprehended under "a single-ordered whole, and thus, have attempted to rationalize reality, rendering it in some formulaic manner that more closely approximates the demands of exactness and certitude" ( Hall and Ames 1995, xxii). Next this study will demonstrate how the theories of early Greek thinkers and rhetoricians contributed to constructing the basis of Aristotle's rhetoric. Plato's concept of the Good and Aristotle's concept of causality are also briefly reviewed because Aristotle developed the concept of causality from his teacher's concept of the Good and constructed his rhetoric based on the notion of causality. In order to see how Aristotle's rhetoric was developed from previous Greek rhetoric, characteristics of sophistic rhetoric and Plato's rhetoric are also briefly introduced. In the next section, a summary of Aristotle's Rhetoric and its major rhetorical elements which influenced the discipline of North American rhetoric and composition is provided. Finally, study then explores Aristotelian rhetorical influences on North American rhetoric and composition.
In Chapter Four, quantitative research is presented. Its objective is to examine the rhetorical characteristics of both East Asian and the United States' cultures discussed in Chapter Two and Chapter Three. To fulfill this objective, quantitative measures are used to produce necessary statistics from the collected raw data which consist of fifty Korean students' expository essays written in Korean and another fifty native English speaker students' expository essays written in English were randomly selected and analyzed according to the following research questions:
1. Are there any rhetorical differences between the languages in East Asia and English in the United States ?
2. Assuming that there are rhetorical differences, can major written discourse patterns, which are culturally embedded, be traceable in the student essays respectively ?
3. If the rhetorical style of English essays in the United States differs from that of essays written in Korean, one of East Asian languages, can this difference be attributed to cultural, philosophical, and rhetorical features respectively ?
The target categories examined for identifying the culturally embedded rhetorical patterns are presence and placement of thesis statement for the essay, and presence of topic sentences and frequency of topic changes in the paragraph. Finally Chapter Four includes a discussion of the findings. Chapter Five includes a summary of this study, conclusions, and a brief description of pedagogical implications.
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