1. Culturally Diverse Writing Styles
Shanna Williams

2. Visual Representations of Culturally Diverse Writing Styles
English
Arabic
Oriental
Romance
Russian
Kaplan, Robert, B. “Cultural Thought Patterns in Inter-Cultural Education.” Landmark Essays on ESL Writing, edited by Tony Silva
and Paul Kei Matsuda. Hermagoras Press, 2001, pp

3. Culturally Diverse Writing Styles
According to Richard Kaplan, “The foreign-student paper is out of focus because the foreign student is employing a rhetoric and a sequence of thought which violate the expectations of the native reader.”
Kaplan, Robert, B. “Cultural Thought Patterns in Inter-Cultural Education.” Landmark Essays on ESL Writing, edited by Tony Silva
and Paul Kei Matsuda. Hermagoras Press, 2001, pp

4. Culturally Diverse Writing Styles
Alan Purves looked at college students’ essays in Australia, England, Finland, Ivory Coast, Israel, Japan, Nigeria, New Zealand, Scotland, Thailand, and the United States
Purves found, “If one were to examine the whole group of essays, one would notice a striking difference between countries and a striking similarity within countries.”
Purves, Alan C. “Rhetorical Communities the International Student, and Basic Writing.” Journal of Basic Writing, vol. 5, No. 1, 1986,
pp wac.colostate.edu/jbw/v5n1/purves.pdf

5. Contrastive Rhetoric
Kaplan’s initial discussion of culturally diverse writing styles and the myriad of scholarly research that followed became known as the study of contrastive rhetoric.
As explained by Ulla Connor, contrastive rhetoric “is premised on the insight that, to the degree that language and writing are cultural phenomena, different cultures have different rhetorical tendencies.”
Connor, Ulla. “New Directions in Contrastive Rhetoric.” TESOL Quaterly, vol. 36, no. 4, Winter 2002, pp

6. Culturally Diverse Writing Styles
Chinese Writing Style
There is no concept of a topic sentence in Chinese writing.
US students tend to be significantly more direct in their writing than Chinese students.
Chinese writing also tends to pay much less attention to paragraph organization as opposed to US writing.
Yang, Ling and David Cahill. “The Rhetorical Organization of Chinese and American Students’ Expository Essays: A Contrastive
Rhetoric Study.” International Journal of English Studies, vol. 8, no. 2, 2008, pp JSTOR,

7. Culturally Diverse Writing Styles
Korean Writing Style
Students do not follow a specific rhetorical pattern.
The structure of Korean essays are non-linear
Choi, Yhee. “Text Structure of Korean Speakers’ Argumentative Essays in English.” World English, vol. 7, no. 2, 1988, pp.
doi: /

8. Culturally Diverse Writing Styles
Japanese Writing Style
Japanese students use a deductive type of organizational pattern
Sudden topic shifts
The main idea is presented at the end
Hirose, Keiko. “Comparing L1 and L2 Organizational Patterns in the Argumentative Writing of Japanese EFL Students.” Journal of
Second Language Learning, vol. 12, 2003, pp doi: /
Kubota, Ryuko. “An Investigation of L1-L2 Transfer in Writing Among Japanese University Students: Implications for Contrastive Rhetoric.”
Journal of Second Language Writing, Vol. 7, no. 1, 1998, pp

9. Culturally Diverse Writing Styles
Persian Writing Style
A typical paragraph contains one claim in the beginning and another claim at the end.
There is a great use of parallelism which enables the inclusion of two claims in one paragraph.
Pishghadam, Reza, and Atena Attaran. “Rhetorical Patterns of Argumentation in EFL Journals of Persian and
English.” International Journal of Research in Language Learning, vol. 2, no. 1, Jan. 2013, pp F132%2F104&hl=en&sa=T&oi=gga&ct=gga&cd=27&ei=B9MQWfPkGIHWjAHJmaeYBg&scisig=AAGBfm192rk7BDjLRqly_61U6TRgFo4x5A& nossl=1&ws=1680x901.

10. Culturally Diverse Writing Styles
Persian Writing Style Continued
Persian writers use more irony, hedges, rhetorical questions, and the passive voice more than English writers
Persian writers are less likely to include a direct thesis statement in the introduction
Persian writers either do not state the main idea directly or state it at the end of the essay
Alijanian, Ehsan and Hossein Vahid Dastjerdi. “The Use of Indirectness Devices in Persian and English Argument Written Discourse:
A Cross-Cultural Perspective.” International Journal of Linguistics, vol. 4, no. 3, 2012, pp doi: /ijl.v4i3.1733

11. Culturally Diverse Writing Styles
Taiwanese Writing Style
Taiwanese writing has less extended and complex argumentation style
Taiwanese writing is much less likely to include personal experience in comparison to US writing
Cheng, Fei-Wen and Yueh-Miao Chen. “Taiwanese Argumentation Skills: Contrastive Rhetoric Perspective.” Taiwan International
ESP Journal, vol. 1, no. 1, 2009, pp

12. Culturally Diverse Writing Styles
French Writing Style
French writing style encourages digressions while the US writing style does not.
Siepmann, Dirk. “Academic Writing and Culture: An Overview of Differences Between English, French, and German.” Meta, vol.
51, No. 1, 2006, pp

13. Culturally Diverse Writing Styles
German Writing Style
Thesis statements are not taught in Germany.
Little emphasis is placed on introductions and conclusions.
German writing is more likely to contain digressions than US writing.
Reichelt, Melinda. “Defining ‘Good Writing’: A Cross-Cultural Perspective.” Composition Studies, vol. 31, no. 1, Spring 2003, pp.
99-126, JSTOR,

14. Culturally Diverse Writing Styles
Siepmann, Dirk. “Academic Writing and Culture: An Overview of Differences Between English, French, and German.” Meta, vol. 51, No. 1, 2006, pp

15. Writer or Reader Responsibility?
According to Melinda Reichelt, “US writers, in comparison to German writers, may be expected to convey information in a way that is as clear as possible. The expectation of US readers that texts should be transparent and that readers would be able to read and interpret texts for themselves may correlate with US cultural values of equity and non-elitism. This contrasts with German values regarding scholarly activity, in which it may be more acceptable or expected for a writer to exhibit his/her intellectual prowess by writing obscurely… In English speaking countries, most of the onus falls on writers to make their texts readable, whereas it is the readers who have to make the extra effort in German-speaking countries so that they can understand the texts, especially if the author is an academic.”
Reichelt, Melinda. “Defining ‘Good Writing’: A Cross-Cultural Perspective.” Composition Studies, vol. 31, no. 1, Spring 2003, pp.
99-126, JSTOR,

16. Writer or Reader Responsibility?
According to Pishghadam and Altaran,“We found that taking both inductive and deductive development in a paragraph makes Persian readers be more responsible than English readers to grasp the main idea of the paragraph. Consequently, Persian readers are needed to read between lines and receive covert messages which endorse the concept of high-context culture as well.”
Pishghadam, Reza, and Atena Attaran. “Rhetorical Patterns of Argumentation in EFL Journals of Persian and
English.” International Journal of Research in Language Learning, vol. 2, no. 1, Jan. 2013, pp download%2F132%2F104&hl=en&sa=T&oi=gga&ct=gga&cd=27&ei=B9MQWfPkGIHWjAHJmaeYBg&scisig=AAGBfm192rk7B DjLRqly_61U6TRgFo4x5A&nossl=1&ws=1680x901.

17. Writer or Reader Responsibility?
According to Alijanian and Dastjerdi, “Generally speaking, indirectness in Persian writing is considered an artistic style with the aim of achieving respect and indicating harmony in human communication. Persian readers are more patient in reading compositions; they are expected to realize the connotation of a text and work hard. Even it can be suggested that stating the points too clearly is disrespecting the readers; the writer is expected to give room to his interlocutors for interpretation.”
Alijanian, Ehsan and Hossein Vahid Dastjerdi. “The Use of Indirectness Devices in Persian and English Argument Written Discourse:
A Cross-Cultural Perspective.” International Journal of Linguistics, vol. 4, no. 3, 2012, pp doi: /ijl.v4i3.1733

18. Writer or Reader Responsibility?
According to Kubota, in Japanese writing, “the main ideas do not appear until the end and the paragraphs before the main ideas do not constitute reasons or evidence for the main idea.” Therefore, “The reader is responsible for finding the link between the topic and the main idea.”
Kubota, Ryuko. “An Investigation of L1-L2 Transfer in Writing Among Japanese University Students: Implications for Contrastive Rhetoric.”
Journal of Second Language Writing, Vol. 7, no. 1, 1998, pp

19. Writer or Reader Responsibility?
According to Dirk Siepmann, “German texts, by virtue of their digressiveness, are versatile and multi-faceted, whereas Anglo-Saxon writing is repetitive and coulorless. Equally, German text structure might be likened metaphorically to that of a ‘staircase’ or ‘spiral’ leading the writer through even more complex stages of reasoning to the conclusion. Viewed from this perspective, English academic style will appear like a walk over a perfectly flat country with no attempt to venture into mountainous territory.”
Siepmann, Dirk. “Academic Writing and Culture: An Overview of Differences Between English, French, and German.” Meta, vol. 51, No. 1, 2006, pp

20. Why Is There Cultural Diversity Among Writing Styles?
Culture and language differences have been historically identified as the reasons for diversity among writing styles.
However, more recent scholarship has challenged that position.
According to Carol Severino, “Culturally and linguistically influenced thought patterns cannot by themselves account for differences in rhetorical patterns and features. There is a complex relationship between cultural ways of thinking and that culture's literacy instruction.”
Severino, Carol. “The ‘Doodles’ in Context: Qualifying Claims about Contrastive Rhetoric.” The Writing Center Journal, vol. 14, no.
1, Fall 1993.

21. Why Is There Cultural Diversity Among Writing Styles?
According to Ling Yang and David Cahill, “While culture as a whole may have an important impact on students’ rhetorical patterns, the influence of school education, which is direct and immediate, is non-negligible…Children learn to write through formal instruction, normally in a school setting..”
According to Helen Fox, “For although culture has a strong influence on writing that all students produce, their writing ‘styles’ do not come in neat packages; they are as complex and varied as the personalities and life experiences of each individual in the human family.”
Yang, Ling and David Cahill. “The Rhetorical Organization of Chinese and American Students’ Expository Essays: A Contrastive
Rhetoric Study.” International Journal of English Studies, vol. 8, no. 2, 2008, pp JSTOR,
Fox, Helen. Listening to the World: Cultural Issues in Academic Writing. National Council of Teachers of English, 1994.

22. Why Study Culturally Diverse Writing Styles?
According to Reichelt, “Further investigation into assumptions about good writing can be beneficial because notions of good writing, whether explicit, or more likely, implicit, have significant, concrete implications for students in writing programs. They influence formation of student placement and exit criteria for courses within programs; articulations of goals and development of curriculum; response to student writing, assignment of grades; and development of writing proficiency exams.”
She continues, “The criteria for ‘good writing’ reside not just within the texts but also within teachers, and teachers’ criteria are shaped, transformed, and determined to a large extent by the historical, social, and cultural forces that are beyond an individual’s control.”
Reichelt, Melinda. “Defining ‘Good Writing’: A Cross-Cultural Perspective.” Composition Studies, vol. 31, no. 1, Spring 2003, pp.
99-126, JSTOR,

23. What are the Implications of the Study of Culturally Diverse Writing Styles?
According to Severino, “Yet, in increasingly multicultural educational settings such as writing centers, the internalization of reductive notions about rhetorics of different languages and cultures, including English in the US, can lead to skewed, simplistic expectations and interpretations of ESL students and their writing and an ethnocentric, assimilationist pedagogical stance.”
Severino, Carol. “The ‘Doodles’ in Context: Qualifying Claims about Contrastive Rhetoric.” The Writing Center Journal, vol. 14, no.
1, Fall 1993.

24. What are the Implications of the Study of Culturally Diverse Writing Styles?
According to Reichelt, “Examining our own, local assumptions about ‘good writing’ by juxtaposing them against those of other cultures is especially important for writing specialists because it can help us understand in what ways our assumptions about writing are culture based.”
According to Christiane Donahue, “We need, essentially, to begin thinking about where our work fits into the world rather than where the world’s work fits into ours, and move beyond an ‘us-them’ paradigm.”
Donahue, Christian. “’Internationalization’ and Composition Studies” Reorienting the Discourse.” College Composition and
Communication, vol. 61, no. 2, December 2009, pp JSTOR,
Reichelt, Melinda. “Defining ‘Good Writing’: A Cross-Cultural Perspective.” Composition Studies, vol. 31, no. 1, Spring 2003, pp.
99-126, JSTOR,

25. We Must Be Careful
According to Dirk, “Every effort should be made to preserve the present plurality of linguaculture through adequate writing instruction in each language… Without such efforts, there is a real danger that uniformity and monoculture will be the order of the day, seriously constraining the linguistic, conceptual, and methodological richness afforded by the current diversity of linguacultures and world-views.”
Siepmann, Dirk. “Academic Writing and Culture: An Overview of Differences Between English, French, and German.” Meta, vol. 51, No. 1, 2006, pp

26. What Does All this Mean for Educators?
According to Reichelt, “Teachers should be aware that conventions of essay writing in the US, including organizational format, and the concept of a thesis statement, may be unfamiliar to [ESL] students.”
We need to be aware that some of our students might not understand what we are looking for when assigning an essay.
We need to make our expectations more explicit and clear to students who are not familiar with the US culture writing style.
Reichelt, Melinda. “Defining ‘Good Writing’: A Cross-Cultural Perspective.” Composition Studies, vol. 31, no. 1, Spring 2003, pp.
99-126, JSTOR,