223– 228|

Book Reviews
‘International Journal of Bilingualism’ • Volume 12• Number 3 • 2008, | 223

Book Reviews
Ulla Connor, Ed Nagelhout, William V. Rozycki (Eds.), Contrastive rhetoric:
Reaching to intercultural rhetoric. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2008.
324 pp.

This volume, edited by Ulla Connor, Ed Nagelhout, and William Rozycki, reviews the
history and recent developments of Contrastive Rhetoric (CR), presents a number of
empirical studies that either build on the traditional methodology of the field or bring
in new perspectives, and looks to the future in the direction of Intercultural Rhetoric
which, according to the editors, reflects better the relationship between texts and the
contexts in which they are written.
The volume begins with an Introduction by the editors, which provides a succinct
overview on the original assumptions and concerns of CR, discusses the new directions
and methodological advances in the field, and outlines the purpose and structure of
the present volume. The aim of the volume, as the editors state, is to “showcase a great
number of empirical studies of contrastive and intercultural rhetoric” and to “further
develop the theoretical base of contrastive rhetoric” (p.4). The main body of the volume
is divided into four sections.
The first section, consisting of two chapters, is titled “Current state of contrastive
rhetoric.” It begins with Xiaoming Li’s engaging chapter, which extends the review on
the history of CR in the Introduction by critically evaluating the works by Connor,
Kubota, and Zamel, which are inspired by Robert Kaplan’s work. It also examines the
assumptions associated with the term “culture” and the boundaries of CR. The chapter
by Anna Moreno tackles the methodological issues in corpus-based research in cross-
cultural studies of CR. The author considers what is meant by contextual factors in a
general model of communication and stresses the importance and necessity of control-
ling the relevant contextual factors in the corpus in order to draw reliable conclusions
about the possible effect of the language/culture factor on texts.
The second section of the volume consists of six chapters. All of the chapters in
this section follow the approach of contrastive corpus studies in specific genres. They
all start with a brief review of the previous literature on the particular genre under study
and then present their own corpus data before conducting some quantitative analysis.
For example, Chapter 3, by Annelie Ädel, investigates the metadiscourse, or “talk about
talk,” in the English writing by three groups of English speakers (British, American, and
advanced Swedish learners of English). Chapter 4, by Haiying Feng, analyzes the research
grant proposals by native speakers of Chinese. Chapter 5, by Maria Loukianenko Wolfe,
compares the rhetorical patterns of business letters by English and Russian speakers
and identifies a number of differences between the two groups. Chapter 6, by Chin-
Sook Pak and Rebeca Acevedo, examines Spanish newspaper editorials among various
Spanish-speaking countries and two Spanish-speaking communities in the USA. Chapter
The International Journal of Bilingualism
Copyright © 2008 the Author/s 2008, ISSN; Vol 12 (3): 223–228; ID no 098569;
DOI; 10.1177/1367006908098569 http://Ijb.sagepub.com
224 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BILINGUALISM 12 (3)

7, by Lorena Suárz and Anna Moreno, studies the rhetorical structure of academic
book reviews written in English and Spanish, and Chapter 8, by Wei Wang, compares
newspaper commentaries on terrorism in China and Australia. All the chapters iden-
tify variations between the groups under study. However, the variations are explained
differently in different chapters. Some chapters explain the differences primarily in
terms of cultural contrasts. For example, Wolfe (Chapter 5) explains the differences in
the rhetorical patterns of business letters by English and Russian speakers in terms of
Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions. Ädel (Chapter 3) accounts for the variations found
between three varieties of English (English, American, and advanced Swedish learners
of English) in terms of genre comparability, cultural conventions, register awareness,
and general learner strategies. Suarez and Moreno (Chapter 7) argue that different
cultural expectations of a particular genre result in variations. For example, Spanish
book reviewers tend to develop more descriptive moves and are more sympathetic in
their evaluation than English writers.
Other chapters look beyond cultural differences and turn to the specific contex-
tual or socioeconomical, political factors that are shaping a particular genre alongside
cultural factors. Haiying Feng (Chapter 4) finds that although the Chinese grant
proposals follow a similar discourse structure and display stylistic features similar
to those in English, there are differences in the strategies used in moves of Niche,
Research Means, and Competence Claim. The author argues that it is inappropriate
to label textual differences reflected in writings of different ethnic cultures simply
as cultural differences. The differences, according to Feng, may be attributable to
various local contexts, such as research and literacy traditions, sociopolitical struc-
ture, and economic conditions. Chin-Sook Pak and Rebeca Acevedo (Chapter 6)
interpret the variations in the discourse patterns of Spanish newspaper editorials in
terms of contextual factors. The contextual factors include the target audience, the
particular journalistic culture, educational background of the editorial writers, the
political orientations of the newspaper, and the sociopolitical situation of the period.
Wei Wang (Chapter 8) finds that the Chinese writer tends to avoid personal voice by
the use of more facts and evidence to establish arguments in newspaper commentaries
on terrorism, while the Australian writer shows personal identity clearly by presenting
his or her viewpoints. Such differences are accounted for by sociocultural contexts
underlying the newspaper commentaries. In China, mass media serve as a link between
the government and the people and are less commercialized and profit-driven than the
mass media in Australia.
The third section of the volume contains four chapters that not only use a variety
of methods but also apply CR to the teaching of ESL/EFL writing. Using an ethno-
graphical approach, Virginia LoCastro (Chapter 9) examines learners’ writing practices
in their educational environment from multiperspectives including the educational
setting, literacy training, and writing instruction from both teachers’ and learners’
perspectives. Kara McBride (Chapter 10) uses CR and schema theory to interpret the
way EFL learners from a Chilean university navigate unfamiliar websites in English.
The main findings are that it is user schemata and web page layouts rather than the
level of English proficiency that correlate with the skills in information retrieval. The
chapter shows how CR can help to improve ESL/EFL students’ information literacy by

The International Journal of Bilingualism

 Book Reviews 225

highlighting differences in the typical layouts of web pages in English and in L1. Xiaoyu
You, in Chapter 11, demonstrates how a historical approach may contribute new insights
into CR. The author examines the evolvement of theme treatment in Chinese writing
instruction in the context of dominant Chinese ideologies over the last century (i.e., from
Confucianism to Marxism). Joel Bloch, in Chapter 12, demonstrates that intercultural
rhetoric can help us understand the study of plagiarism and vice versa by reviewing the
various approaches and perspectives on plagiarism.
The last section of the volume focuses on the future direction of the field. Paul
Kei Matsuda and Dwright Atkinson, in Chapter 13, use an innovative format of “the
academic conversation” to discuss the issues, conceptualizations, and the future of
CR. Among various topics under discussion are the relationship between research and
pedagogy in CR. According to the discussants, CR started as a pedagogical concept.
However, the consequence of being treated as a pedagogical concept is that CR has a
very limited critical research focus. Renaming and reconceptualizing CR would help
to broaden the focus and develop CR into an all-inclusive field using multiple meth-
odologies. The last chapter of the volume, by Ulla Connor, offers a systematic and
extended discussion of major milestones in the development of CR as a research field.
According to Connor, the first major development came when writing was considered
as a socially constructed activity and the social practices surrounding the writing were
taken into account in interpreting discourse patterns. The second development came
when researchers began to perceive cultures as interacting or overlapping with each other
in a particular setting. Connor argues that the third stage is when writing is studied as
an intercultural encounter rather than separate entities across cultural boundaries and
this is the stage when Intercultural Rhetoric will carry the field forward.
The key strengths of the book lie in the wealth of data presented and analyzed
in the various chapters and the diverse cultures the studies cover. There are also some
reader-friendly features in the volume. Each chapter starts with an abstract, which is very
often missing in an edited volume. Most of the chapters present the original data in the
appendix for comparison. The chapters in each section are coherent and well planned.
The volume fully achieves its goals set out by the editors at the beginning of the
book. It offers invaluable insight into the past, present, and future of CR. The editors
are open-minded in their selection of articles. Alternative, and sometimes controversial,
views are given alongside the views advocated by the editors. Readers are encouraged to
make their own judgment based on the evidence they have seen in the book. It is highly
recommendable to researchers and teachers of ESL/EFL writing.

Zhu Hua
Binkbeck College, University of London

Vally Lytra, Play frames and social identities. Amsterdam: John Benjamins,
2007. 300 pp.
In Play frames and social identities, Vally Lytra presents a truly fascinating ethnographic
study of a multilingual group of children in a Greek primary school focusing on playful
interaction as a site for the analysis of “the constitution, representation and negotiation

The International Journal of Bilingualism