Contrastive rhetoric and the discourse of second language learning across cultures: A critical synthesis of existing literature

Abstract

Contrastive rhetoric is the field that studies how language and writing styles differ between cultures and how these differences affect second language learning. The article attempted to critically synthesize the existing literature on contrastive rhetoric and its implications for intercultural second language learning. As a branch of comparative linguistics, contrastive rhetoric involves the structured study of a combination of languages in order to solve the problems that learners face in transferring rhetorical patterns from a first language to a second language, thereby identifying their structural differences and similarities. However, the question of whether a learner's first language influences foreign language learning or not has remained a mystery to many second language acquisition scholars and researchers for many years. The article uses a systematic review approach methodology to discuss the origins and development of contrastive analysis, its theoretical foundations and assumptions, its applications and benefits to learning second languages and other fields, and the theory of contrastive analysis. The research shows that although contrastive rhetoric has been widely criticized for being overly simplistic and narrow, it has evolved to include interdisciplinary perspectives and approaches that serve to address linguistic diversity and inclusivity. The research shows that contrastive rhetoric is not only a starting point for educators but also a tool for addressing the rhetorical challenges that students face when transferring rhetorical patterns from their native languages.