"Long sentences and floating commas": Mexican students' rhetorical practices and the sociocultural context
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Virginia LoCastro
Abstract
This chapter reports on a study that takes a problem-drive approach to answer the question “What do Mexican Spanish university writers ‘do’ when they write in Spanish, their L1, and in English, their L2?” This ethnographic study examines learners’ writing practices in their educational environment. Data collection includes learner and participant observation accounts, classroom observations, and textbook analyses. In Part I, the sociocultural context of the Mexican university is described, followed by a functional discourse analysis of one representative example from a multilingual student’s essay. Part II discusses the educational setting, literacy training, and writing instruction from both teachers’ and learners’ perspectives. This chapter informs teachers and other language education professionals about multilingual writers in EFL contexts.
Abstract
This chapter reports on a study that takes a problem-drive approach to answer the question “What do Mexican Spanish university writers ‘do’ when they write in Spanish, their L1, and in English, their L2?” This ethnographic study examines learners’ writing practices in their educational environment. Data collection includes learner and participant observation accounts, classroom observations, and textbook analyses. In Part I, the sociocultural context of the Mexican university is described, followed by a functional discourse analysis of one representative example from a multilingual student’s essay. Part II discusses the educational setting, literacy training, and writing instruction from both teachers’ and learners’ perspectives. This chapter informs teachers and other language education professionals about multilingual writers in EFL contexts.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- Introduction 1
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Section I. Current state of contrastive rhetoric
- From contrastive rhetoric to intercultural rhetoric: A search for collective identity 11
- The importance of comparable corpora in cross-cultural studies 25
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Section II. Contrastive corpus studies in specific genres
- Metadiscourse across three varieties of English: American, British, and advanced learner English 45
- A genre-based study of research grant proposals in China 63
- Different cultures – different discourses? Rhetorical patterns of business letters by English and Russian speakers 87
- Spanish language newspaper editorials from Mexico, Spain, and the U.S. 123
- The rhetorical structure of academic book reviews of literature: An English-Spanish cross-linguistic approach 147
- Newspaper commentaries on terrorism in China and Australia: A contrastive genre study 169
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Section III. Contrastive rhetoric and the teaching of ESL/EFL writing
- "Long sentences and floating commas": Mexican students' rhetorical practices and the sociocultural context 195
- English web page use in an EFL setting: A contrastive rhetoric view of the development of information literacy 219
- From Confucianism to Marxism: A century of theme treatment in Chinese writing instruction 241
- Plagiarism in an intercultural rhetoric context: What we can learn about one from the other 257
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Section IV. Future directions
- A conversation on contrastive rhetoric: Dwight Atkinson and Paul Kei Matsuda talk about issues, conceptualizations, and the future of contrastive rhetoric 277
- Mapping multidimensional aspects of research: Reaching to intercultural rhetoric 299
- Notes on contributors 317
- Index 321
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- Introduction 1
-
Section I. Current state of contrastive rhetoric
- From contrastive rhetoric to intercultural rhetoric: A search for collective identity 11
- The importance of comparable corpora in cross-cultural studies 25
-
Section II. Contrastive corpus studies in specific genres
- Metadiscourse across three varieties of English: American, British, and advanced learner English 45
- A genre-based study of research grant proposals in China 63
- Different cultures – different discourses? Rhetorical patterns of business letters by English and Russian speakers 87
- Spanish language newspaper editorials from Mexico, Spain, and the U.S. 123
- The rhetorical structure of academic book reviews of literature: An English-Spanish cross-linguistic approach 147
- Newspaper commentaries on terrorism in China and Australia: A contrastive genre study 169
-
Section III. Contrastive rhetoric and the teaching of ESL/EFL writing
- "Long sentences and floating commas": Mexican students' rhetorical practices and the sociocultural context 195
- English web page use in an EFL setting: A contrastive rhetoric view of the development of information literacy 219
- From Confucianism to Marxism: A century of theme treatment in Chinese writing instruction 241
- Plagiarism in an intercultural rhetoric context: What we can learn about one from the other 257
-
Section IV. Future directions
- A conversation on contrastive rhetoric: Dwight Atkinson and Paul Kei Matsuda talk about issues, conceptualizations, and the future of contrastive rhetoric 277
- Mapping multidimensional aspects of research: Reaching to intercultural rhetoric 299
- Notes on contributors 317
- Index 321
