A Little Note on Kaplan's Article

Kaplan's article presents one of the earliest views on contrastive rhetoric. He argues that thought processes or patterns of logical thinking play a pivotal role in shaping the rhetorical tradition of a culture. He contends that by understanding the thought patterns of other cultures or of other language users, English writing teachers will have a better chance of success. Although I agree with Kaplan on many issues raised in the article, he did leave me wonder about a few things.

First, I wonder if Kaplan is a little shortsighted in judging how literacy in general develops. In his view, it seems it is only one-way street where our rhetorical skill is shaped only by the way we think or by the way our culture views certain things. Many current literacy studies have gathered much evidence convincing enough to suggest that literacy, or in this particular case, rhetorical skill, is also affected by the already existing rhetorical forms. In other words, rhetoric is not only shaped by our logical thinking but our logical thinking might have already been affected by rhetoric from the very beginning.

The implication of this is that in order to teach English writing to students from other cultures, not only do we need to emphasize to them that they need to think differently or to think in the English context but also to emphasize to them that the form of writing that they are already used to in their own language may have influenced the way they think now. It would be in their interest that they are able to distance themselves from all forms of writing they have been exposed to that might have shaped their thinking patterns. In other words, Kaplan’s campaign would have been more successful if he also emphasized the deconstruction of the already established pattern of logic in students’ mind.

Kaplan's call for studying contrastive rhetoric might be seen as opinionated, which is another potential source of disagreement and the one that does not reflect the current view of literacy or contrastive rhetoric. Kaplan seems to have assumed or advocated that English has one fixed form of rhetoric or what is called Aristotle’s version of rhetoric. This assumption, if proven, dismisses the role of other forms of rhetoric such as those found in creative writing. Kaplan's intention in the article might then be judged as to teach that one form of rhetoric with no deviation allowed.

In contrast, the current view of literacy (as in multiple literacy theory) and contrastive rhetoric recognizes the role other rhetorical forms and those from other cultures play in English writing. This to some extent makes Kaplan’s agenda politically problematic in that he encourages teachers to teach the student how to be aware of the existing variety only for the sake of not falling into that "variety trap". Doing so, Kaplan has (maybe) created a list of do's and don’ts in contrastive rhetoric instead of asking teachers and students to recognize such differences as their writing assets.

Questions to ponder: what is the true contrastive rhetoric conventional position on this dilemma? Are we to recognizing alternative rhetorical forms in order to avoid them or to find space for them in English writing?