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last.updated 10.4.05

 

Arrangement and Contrastive Rhetoric

Purpose

Arrangement pertains to the ways that we organize the content of our communication, whether it be oral, verbal, or visual. Arrangement, as Aristotle articulates, has been about developing the best strategy for specific parts of the given text. Even today we have a choice in how we organize a text (to be persuasive by the best available means), yet these choices are often influenced by multiple factors, including audience expectations, cultural thought patterns, and genre conventions–which are not mutually exclusive.

Once we establish what Aristotle's theory about arrangement, we will look at how certain familiar genres get arranged and why. From this discussion you will be prompted to consider why certain types of documents are arranged in a specific manner. We will also look at cultural thought patterns, or contrastive rhetoric, and discuss the implications of how we read the ways different cultures have organized texts.

Background

Contrastive Rhetoric

  • Kaplan's article is considered the seminal scholarship on contrastive rhetoric
  • ignored throughout most of the 1970's
  • became part of second langauge (L2) writing scholarship with the introduction of discourse analysis in the 1980's
  • Kaplan's article has been widely critiqued and widely adopted; Kaplan has mostly stepped away from his original argument.

Presentation

Lori, Sarah R., Detonyah

Discussion

  • what is contrastive rhetoric?
  • what are the various rhetorical styles he describes?
  • how do you see contrastive rhetoric being useful, especially in your emphasis of study?
  • how is contrastive rhetoric problematic as a rhetorical theory?
  • what are World Englishes?
  • how does Kachru's understanding of World Englishes relate to contrastive rhetoric?
  • if you were a teacher, how would contrastive rhetoric and World Englishes influence how you review and/or evaluate the "Las Vegas" essay?
    • what culture do you think this student is from?
    • how might these theories help you approach this student