Jan 28 Practice Question 1

"In your own experiences writing in L1 and L2 (L3,...) what CR and/or IR issues have arisen for you? Where do your own problems with writing come from? Have you been consciously aware of the factors that influence your rhetorical decisions? Where does your awareness of these factors come from?"

This chapter helps me reflect a lot about my own L1 (Chinese) and L2 (English) writing. From my perspective, the paragraphs or the sentences in Chinese and English have distinct organizational structures, the logic of thinking, and reader expectations. We have a vivid metaphor that captures the main difference of organizational structures between English and Chinese: the sentences or the paragraphs of English are like trees, with the stem attached by branches, whereas those of Chinese resemble waves, advancing in layers. As a result, when I learned to write English at first, I always found myself spreading my ideas piece by piece and using commas all the way to the end of a paragraph. One of the most impressive comments my English teachers made was that “I need to hold my breath until the very end of your passage”. In the same vein, I preferred to put the decision or the conclusion after the reasoning part in my argument, which is mostly reversed in English, for instance, “I will be absent from class because…” (typical English) versus “(Because) I need to…, so I will be absent from class”. Last but not least, the criteria for “good writing” are differentiated, which is also mentioned in this chapter: a sentimental and moral message is more appreciated in Chinese.

I started to realize those differences when I prepared for my GRE tests and communicated with my English language partners. My observations with Chinese undergraduates after I came to the US further confirmed my thoughts. The first two rhetoric differences may have to do with the conventions of building up arguments in two languages. However, they may be more related with the persuasion style rather than the language itself because both Chinese and English are head-initial (right-branching) languages that have the core preceding its dependent(s). The differential criteria for “good writing” may be due to the writing practice Chinese students have in their high schools. In order to pass the college entrance test in China which is extremely competitive, we need to conform to the requirements for essay writing in that test. Most raters, at least in my province, appreciate a sentimental and moral essay, even without a clearly stated idea. For them, vague is beauty.