AMERICAN AND JAPANESE HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS' RHETORICAL PATTERNS IN WRITING ENGLISH PERSUASIVE COMPOSITIONS

Abstract

This study intends to explore how American and Japanese high school students characteristically differ from each other in terms of rhetorical patterns in writing a persuasive composition in English. For that purpose, the following research hypotheses were set up to compare and contrast the written samples of the two groups: (1) The Deductive Tendency hypothesis which predicts that American students will tend to present the claim first, and Japanese students the data first. (2) The Claim Assertiveness hypothesis which states that American students will tend to articulate their claim in arguments advanced more assertively and explicitly than their Japanese counterparts. (3) The Logical Tendency hypothesis which predicts that American students will rely more on rational appeals while the Japanese group will rely more on affective appeals, (4) The Persuasive Adaptiveness hypothesis which predicts that Japanese students will show a stronger tendency to adjust their writing to the target audience by using audience-related activities to create effective persuasive strategies than the American students. In order to examine the first and second hypotheses, 42 American and Japanese persuasive compositions were subjected to the Toulmin Analysis of Logical Reasoning, which first identifies placement of claim and data, and then examines the degree to which the writer assertively and explicitly articulates a claim statement in the sample essays. In order to test the Logical Tendency hypothesis, the written samples were subjected to the Analysis of Persuasive Appeals, which compared the two groups of composition in frequency of use of the three types of persuasive appeals -- rational, affective, or credibility. In order to test the Persuasive Adaptiveness hypothesis, written samples from each group were compared for the degree to which the writer adapts his persuasive strategies to the target audience's perspective by dealing with audience-related activities such as anticipating possible oppositions, altering or limiting his request, or articulating the advantages to the audience of acceding to the persuasive request. The results indicated that there was statistical evidence in favor of culturally-preferred rhetorical patterns between the two language groups in terms of three of the four research hypotheses proposed. They were the Deductive Tendency hypothesis, the Claim Assertive hypothesis, and the Persuasive Adaptiveness hypothesis. The above research findings generally agreed with the findings of the corresponding studies in this specific mode of writing too -- persuasive writing. On the other hand, rejecting the Logical Tendency hypothesis means that there was no statistical evidence to support the findings of the previous studies about a contrasting use of rational and affective appeals. Analysis with a different set of subjects, writing topics, method of data analysis, or rhetorical situation may, on the other hand, produce different findings. In the light of the above findings, the study explored several possible factors influencing the differences in rhetorical patterns manifested in the above findings. They are (1) attitude toward confrontation, (2) writer-reader relationships, (3) level of context. Pedagogical and theoretical implications, and the direction of future research are also suggested.