Kathleen

I found this reading tricky because it had many questions and few conclusions. I wasn't quite sure what to make of it. The idea of rhetorical patterns differing across cultures makes intuitive sense, but the reading definitely complicated that idea. It also pointed out many issues regarding the manner of grouping: who gets put into which linguistic box? By country? By language? By "culture"?

Also, what, really, is the difference between reader-responsible and writer-responsible writing? What does it mean to be "responsible" for creating meaning? Having been schooled in America, it is hard for me to imagine writing any way other than how I do it, which I think is accurately described as writer-responsible. At least, I always feel responsible for how my reader understands my meaning. Unambiguity is key in the kind of writing I have been trained to do.

This hasn't really come up in my tutoring. So far I've tutored one international student, who was a Japanese PhD candidate working on a book proposal, and her organization and structural patterns were indiscernible from any American graduate student's. But the international student from my Gen Ed Lit just turned in a rough draft, and I'll be interested to see any rhetorical patterns that stand out in her paper.

Comments

  1. AnonymousFebruary 18, 2019 at 9:52 PM

    I think you raise a good point; it is very difficult to think about writing in any other way, besides the way you actually write. Teaching rhetoric students has provided me with a different perspective on this issue. Some rhetoric students are unaware that they write in any particular way or that there are different avenues even available to them. A recognition that writing in the U.S. can be contextual and that we sometimes write in a reader-responsible way on accident can help us conceptualize the existence of multiple writing methods/organizational logics.

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