The academic writing of Japanese students of English : contrastive rhetoric and its implications for an integrated approach to composition pedagogy.

This thesis begins with the assertion that there are serious inadequacies in the \nacademic writing of Japanese students of English studying at the post-secondary \nlevel in Japan. To substantiate this claim, Chapter 1 presents a preliminary profile of \nstudent writing, based on a survey of the literature, the testimony of established \nauthorities, and representative samples of student compositions, establishing \nbaseline parameters of infelicity in their written work and identifying key features \nthat characterize such writing. This survey also reveals numerous problems inherent \nin the research carried out to date, including the fact that terminological confusions \nare widespread and findings tend to be impressionistic and anecdotal. Chapter 1 \nconcludes with a statement of the basic premise of this thesis, claiming that given \neffective instruction, based on an integrated approach to composition pedagogy, \nJapanese EL2 students are capable of making significant improvements in their \nacademic writing skills. \nAlthough purely descriptive, taxonomic approaches to the analysis of written \ndiscourse, such as the profile of student writing presented in Chapter 1, are often a \nuseful initial heuristic, they also have a number of important limits, especially in \naccommodating cross-language linguistic evidence, and in providing a suitable basis \nfor understanding the origins of students' writing difficulties. Such issues cannot be \nresolved at this level of analysis and need to be addressed within a framework of \napplied linguistic theory. Chapter 2 establishes this framework, exploring the \nevolution of research models in contrastive rhetoric and examining the influence of \nrelated areas of investigation in contrastive linguistics and discourse linguistics. \nBased on the assumption that language learners will transfer the rhetorical features \nof their native language to the target language, causing interference in second \nlanguage writing, contemporary theories in contrastive rhetoric have moved beyond \nthe boundaries of text itself to include the cognitive and sociocultural dimensions of \nlanguage transfer, in particular the context in which text is produced, both \nsituational and cultural. This research paradigm provides the theoretical basis for the \ninvestigations that follow, defining the conceptual parameters of the present study. \nAlthough contrastive rhetoric has been strongly influenced by movements \nwithin applied linguistics, it also has a direct relationship with both classical and \nmodem rhetoric. Chapter 3 explores this relationship, examining the evolution of \nrhetoric and discourse education in the western tradition in an investigation designed \nto clarify the standards, norms, and conventions that define the writing canon of \nmodem English prose, and to identify the historical antecedents of modem-day \ndisciplines such as discourse analysis, text linguistics, and composition pedagogy. \nWhile the study of rhetoric helps specify the qualities that define effective \nwriting in English, how they originated, and why they continue to be valued, the \nvi \ngoal of research in composition pedagogy is to develop approaches, methods, and \ntechniques for the classroom which will tell us how such writing should be taught. \nChapter 4 provides an overview of composition pedagogy in both Li and L2 \ncontexts, investigating the multiplicity of approaches to teaching writing cuffently \nproliferating in the field and the theoretical assumptions that underlie them. \nChapters 5 and 6 provide a roughly parallel descriptive framework for Japanese \nrhetoric along cultural, historical, and educational dimensions, for if rhetorical \ntransfer from Japanese can be presumed to be one the main reasons for students' \nwriting difficulties in English, then it is essential to have a rigorous accounting of \nJapanese rhetorical conventions, including the cultural and educational contexts from \nwhich they arise. Chapter 5 defines the principal characteristics of Japanese rhetoric \nfrom a sociohistorical perspective, identifying formative elements in the culture that \ninfluence rhetorical values and preferences, while Chapter 6 assesses the educational \nenvironment in which writing skills are acquired in Japan in a survey of Li and L2 \ncomposition instruction and practice in Japanese schools. \nBuilding on the conclusions drawn from these investigations, Chapter 7 sets \nforth a proposal of pedagogic action designed to offer solutions to the writing \ndifficulties of Japanese EL2 students in an approach to L2 composition instruction \nwhich integrates research in contrastive rhetoric, applied linguistic theory, and \ngeneral pedagogic principles. This proposed pedagogy is tested in an empirical \nstudy of student writing based on a pretestlposttest, experimental/control group \ndesign, and the results are discussed in terms of the importance of integrating \napproaches to composition pedagogy along diachronic, synchronic, and human \ndimensions.