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Kaplan, R.B. (1966) ‘Cultural thought patterns in intercultural education’ in

Language Learning, vol. 16(1-2), pp.1-20.
 CULTURAL THOUGHT PATTERNS IN
INTER-CULTURAL EDUCATION

Robert B. Kaplan
University of So1.7 , ..n California

THE TEACHING OF reading and composition to foreign students

does differ from the teaching of reading and composition to Amer-
ican students, and cultural differences in the nature of rhetoric
supply the key to the difference in teaching approach.
. . .R:ietoric is a mode of thinking or a mode of "find-
ing all available means" for the achievement of a des-
-ignated end. Accordingly, rhetoric concerns itself
basically with what goes on in the mind rather than
with what comes out of the mouth. . . . Rhetoric is
concerned with factors of analysis, data gathering,
interpretation, and synthesis. . . . What we notice in
the environment and how we notice it are both prede-
termined to a significant degree by how we are pre-
pared to notice this particular type of object. . . .
Cultural anthropologists point out that given acts and
objects appear vastly different in different cultures,
depending on the values attached to them. Psycholo-
gists investigating perception are increasingly insistent
that what is perceived depends upon the observer's
perceptual frame of reference.'
Language teachers, particularly teachers of English as a.second
language, are late-comers in the area of international education.
For years, and until quite recently, most languages were taught in
what might be called a mechanistic way, stressing the prescriptive
function of such teaching. In recent years the swing has been in
the other direction, and the prescriptive has practically disap-
peared from languager-, teaching. Descriptive approaches have
seemed to provide the answer. At the present moment, there
seems to be some question about the purely descriptive technique,
and a new compromise between description and prescription
seems to be emerging. Such a compromise appears necessary to
,J) the adequate achievement of results in second-language teaching.
Unfortunately, although both the pre scriptivi sts and the de scriptivists

'Robert T.Oliver, "Foreword," Philosophy. Rhetoric and Argumentation. ed. Maurice

Nathanson and Henry W. Johnstone, Jr. (University Park, Pennsylvania, l965), pp. x-xi•
 2 LANGUAGE LEARNING, VOL. XVI, NOS. 1 & 2 CULTURAL THOUGHT PATTERNS

have recognized the existence of cultural variation as a factor in Every language offers to its speakers a ready-made
second-language teaching, the recognition has so far been limited interpretation of the world, truly a Weltanschauung, a
to the level of the sentence—that is, to the level of grammar, vo- metaphysical word-picture which, after having origi-
cabulary, and sentence structure. On the other hand, it has long nated in the thinking of our ancestors, tends to impose
been known among sociologists and anthropologists that logic per itself ever anew on posterity. Take for instance a
se is a cultural phenomenon as well. simple sentence such as 'I see him. . . .' This means
that English and, I might say, Indo-European, presents
Even if we take into account the lexical and grammati- the impressions made on our senses predominantly as
cal similarities that exist between languages proceed-
human activities, brought about by our will. But the
ing from a common hypothetical ancestor, the fact re- Eskimos in Greenland say not 'I see him' but 'he ap-
mains that the verbal universe is divided into multiple pears to me. . . .' Thus the Indo-European speaker
sectors. Sepir, Whorf, and many others, compaxing the conceives as workings of his activities what the fatal-
Indian languages with the Occidental languages, have istic Eskimo sees as events that happen to him.3
underlined this diversity very forcefully. It seems, in-
deed, as if the arbitrary character of language, having The English language and its related thought patterns have
been shown to be of comparatively little significance at evolved out of the Anglo-European cultural pattern. The expected
the level of the elements of a language, reasserts itself sequence of thought in English is essentially a Platonic-Artistotel-
quite definitely at the level of the language taken as a ian sequence, descended from the philosophers of ancient Greece
whole. And if one admits tat a language represents a and shaped subsequently by Roman, Medieval European, and later
kind of destiny, so far as human thought is concerned, Western thinkers. It is not a better nor a worse system than any
this diversity of languages leads to a radical realitiv- Other but it is different.
ism. As Peirce said, if Aristotle had been Mexican, . . .As human beings, we must inevitably see the uni-
his logic would have been different; and perhaps, by the verse from a centre lying within ourselves and speak
same token, the whole of our philosophy and our sci- about it in terms of a human language by the exigencies
ence would have been different. of human intercourse. Any attempt rigorously to elim-
The fact is that this diversity affects not only the inate our human perspective from our picture of the
languages, but also the cultures, that is to say the world must lead to absurdity. 4
whole system of institutions that are tied to the lan-
guage. . .randl language in its turn is the effect and the A fallacy of some repute and some duration is the one which
expression of a certain world view that is manifested assumes that because a student can write an adequate essay in his
in the culture. If there is causality, it is a reciprocal native lange, he can necessarily write an adequate essay in a
causality. . . . second language. That this assumption is fallacious has become
The types of structures characteristic of a given more and more apparent as English- as- a- second-language courses
culture would then, in each case, be particular modes of have proliferated at American colleges and universities in recent
universal laws. They would define the Volksgeist. . . .2 years. - Foreign students who have mastered syntactic structures
have still demonstrated inability to compose adequate themes,
Logic (in the popular, rather than the logician's sense of the word) term papers, theses, and dissertations. Instructors have written,
which is the basis of rhetoric, is evolved out of a culture; it is not on foreign-student papers, such comments as: "The material is
universal. Rhetoric, then, is not universal either, but varies from all here, but it seems somehow out of focus," or "Lacks organiza-
culture to culture and even froM time to time within a given cul- tion," or "Lacks cohesioii." And these comments are essentially
ture. It is affected by canons of taste within a given culture at a
given time.. ')
3Leo Spitzer, "Language—The Basis of Science, Philosophy and Poetry," Studies in
Intellectual History, ed. George Boas et al. (Baltimore, 1953), pp. 83-84.
2Mikel Dufrenne, Language and Philosophy, trans. Henry B. Veatch (Bloomington, 4michool Polanyi, Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post - Critical Philosophy (Chicago,
1963), PP: 35-37' 1958), P. 9.
 4 CULTURAL THOUGHT PATTERNS 5
LANGUAGE LEARNING, VOL. XVI, NOS. 1 & 2

accurate. The foreign-student paper is out of focus because the central idea and relate that idea to all the other ideas in the whole
foreign student is employing a rhetoric and a sequence of thought essay, and to employ that idea in its proper relationship with the
which violate the expectations of the native reader. other ideas, to prove something, or perhaps to argue something.
A personality is carved out by the whole subtle inter- A piece of writing may be considered unified when
action of these systems of ideas which'are character- it contains nothing superfluous and it omits nothing es-
istic of the culture as a whole, as well as of those sys- sential to the achievement of its purpose. . . . A work
tems of ideas which get established for the individual iS considered coherent when the sequence of its
through more special types of participation .6 -——• parts. . .is controlled by some principle which is
meaningful to the reader. Unity is the quality attributed
The fact that sequence of thought and grammar are related to writing which has all its necessary and sufficient parts.
in a given language has already been demonstrated adequately by Coherence is the quality attributed to the presentation of
Paul Lorenzen. His brief paper proposes that certain linguistic material in a sequence which is intelligible to its reader .8
structures are best comprehended as embodiments of logical
structures.6 Beyond that, every rhetorician from Cicero to Brooks Contrarily, the English paragraph may use just the reverse pro-
and Warren has indicated Cle relationship between thought se- cedure; that is, it may state a whole series of examples and then
quence and rhetoric. relate those examples into a single statement at the end of the
paragraph. These two types of development represent the com-
A paragraph, mechanically considered, is a division of
mon inductive and deductive reasoning which the English reader
the composition, set off by an indentation of its first expects to be an integral part of any formal communication.
sentence or by some other conventional device, such For example, the following paragraph written by Macaulay
as extra space between paragraphs. . . . Paragraph . demonstrates normal paragraph development:
divisions signal to the reader that the material so set
off constitutes a unit of thought. Whitehall, when [Charles the Second] dwelt there,
For the reader this marking off of the whole compo- was the fOcus of political intrigue and of fashionable
sition into segments is a convenience, though not a -.- gaiety. Half the jobbing and half the flirting of the me-
strict necessity. . . . Since communication of one's tropolis went on under his roof. Whoever could make
thought is at best a difficult business, it is the part of himself agreeable to the prince or could secure the
common sense (not to mention good manners) to mark gtod offices of his mistress might hope to rise in the
for the reader the divisions of one's thought and thus world without rendering any service to the govern-
make the thought structure visible upon the page. . . . ment, without even being known by sight to any min-
Paragraphing, obviously, can be of help to the ister of state. This courtier got a frigate and that a
reader only if the indicated paragraphs are genuine company, a third the pardon of a rich offender, a fourth
units of thought. . . . For a paragraph undertakes to a lease of crown-land on easy terms. If the king noti-
discuss one topic or one aspect of a topic.? fied his pleasure that a briefless lawyer should be
made a judge or that a libertine baronet should be -
The thought patterns which speakers and readers of English made a peer, the gravest counsellors, after a little
appear to expect as an integral part of their communication is a murmuring, submitted. Interest, therefore, drew a
sequence that is dominantly linear in its development. An English constant press of suitors to the gates of the palace,
expository paragraph usually t sgins with (a topic statement, and and those gates always stood wide. The King kept open '
then, by a series of subdivisions of that topic statement, each house every day and all day long for the good society
suppcyted by example and illustrations, proceeds to develop that of London, the extreme Whigs only excepted. Hardly
SSapir, "Anthropology and Psychiatry," Culture, Language and Personality (Los any gentleman had any difficulty in making his way to
Angeles, 1964), P. 157. f). the royal presence. The levee was exactly what the
6Logik and Gram/ itik (Mannheim, Germany, 1965).
7Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren, Modern Rhetoric. 2nd ed. (New York, 1958), 8 Richard E. Hughes and P. Albert Duhamel, Rhetoric: Principles and ('sage (Engle-
pp. 267-68. wood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1962), pp. 19-20.
 6 t• 7
LANGUAGE LEARNING, VOL. XVI, NOS. 1 & 2 CULTURAL THOUGHT PATTERNS

word imports. Some men of quality came every morn- most clearly be demonstrated in English by reference to the King
ing to stand round their master, to chat with him while James version of the Old Testament. Several types of parallelism-
his wig was combed and his cravat tied, and to ac- typical of Semitic languages are apparent there because that book,
company him in his early walk through the Park. All of course, is a translation from an ancient Semitic language, a
persons who had been properly introduced might, with- translation accomplished at a time when English was in a state of
out any special invitation, go to see him dine, sup, development suitable to the imitation of those forms.
dance, and play at hazard and might have the pleasure
of hearing him tell stories, which indeed, he told re- 1. Synonymous Parallelism: The balancing of the thought and phras-
ing of the first part of a statement or
markably well, about his flight from Worcester and
idea by the second part. In such
about the misery which he had endured when he was a
state prisoner in the hands of the canting meddling cases, the two parts are often con-
preachers of Scotland.9 nected by a coordinating conjunction.
Example: His descendants will be mighty in the
The paragraph begins with a general statement of its content, and land
then carefully develops that statement by a long series of rather and
spedific illustrations. While it is discursive, the paragraph is the generation of the upright will be
never digressive. There is nothing in this paragraph that does not blessed.
belong here; noth,:ng that does not contribute- significantly to the
2. -Synthetic Parallelism: The completion of the idea or thought
central idea. The flow of ideas occurs in a straight line from the
opening sentence to the last sentence. of the first part in the second part.
A conjunctive adverb is often stated
Without doing too much damage to other ways of thinking,
perhaps it might be possible to contrast the English paragraph de- or implied.
velopment with paragraph development in other linguistic systems. Example: Because he inclined his ear to me
For the purposes of the following brief analysis, some seven therefore
hundred foreign student compositions were carefully analyzed. I will call on him as long as I live.
Approximately one hundred of these were discarded from the study The idea stated in the first part is
on the basis that they represent linguistic groups too small with- 3. Antithetic Parallelism:
emphasized by the expression of a
in the present sample to be significant." But approximately six contrasting idea in the second part.
hundred examples, representing three basic language groups, The contrast is expressed not only in
were examined.11
thought but often in phrasing as well.
In the Arabic language, for example (and this generalization
would be more or less true for all Semitic langua.gesl, paragraph' Example: For the Lord knoweth the way-of the
development is based on a complex series of parallel construc- righteous:
tions, both positive and negative. This kind of parallelism may But the way of the wicked shall perish.

4. Climactic Parallelism: The idea of the passage is not com-

From The History of England from the Accession of James the Second (London, pleted until the very end of the pas-
1849-61). sage. This form is similar to the
10The following examples were discarded: Afghan-3, African-4, Danish-I, Finn-I,
modern periodic sentence in which
German-3, Hindi-8, Persian-46, Russian-I, Greek-1, Tagalog-10, Turk-16, Urdu-5; Total-99.
I 'The papers examined may be linguistically broken down as follows: Group 1--
the subject is postponed - to the very
Arabic-I26, Hebrew-3; Group ;II—Chinese (Vandarin)-110, Cambodian-40, Indochinese-7, end of the sentence.
Japanese-135, Korean-57, Laotian-3, Malasian-1, Thai-27, Vietnamese-1; Group 111—(Span-
Example: Give unto the Lord, 0 ye sons of the
ish-Pottugese) Brazilian-19, Central American-10, South American-42, Cuban -4, Spanish-8,
(French) French-2, African-2 (Italian) Swiss-I. Group I total-129; Group II total-381; Group mighty,
ngth12
III total-88; TOTAL-598. These papers were accumulated and examined over a two year Give unto the Lord glory and stre
period, from the beginning of the Fall 1963 semester through the Fall 1965 academic
_semester.,(.7 121 am indebted to Dr. Ben Siegel for this analysis.
 CULTURAL THOUGHT PATTERNS 0 9
8 LANGUAGE LEARNING, VOL. XVI, NOS. 1 & 2

The type of parallel construction here illustrated in single sen- parallelism do occur. The next-to-last element in the first sen-
tences also forms the core of paragraphs in some Arabic writing. tence, for example, is appositive to the preceding one, while the
Obviously, such a development in a modern English paragraph last element is an example of synonymous parallelism. The two
would strike the modern English reader as archaic or awkward, clauses of the second sentence illustrate synonymous parallelism. -
and more importantly it would stand in the way of clear communi- In the second "paragraph" the first sentence contains both an ex-
cation. It is important to note that in English, maturity of style is ample of antithetic parallelism and a list of parallel nouns. The
often gauged by degree of subordination rather than by coordina- next two sentences form an antithetic pair, and so on. It is per-
tion. haps not necessary to point out further examples in the selection.
The following paper was written as a class exercise by an It is important, however, to observe that in the first sentence, for
Arabic-speaking student in an English-as-a-second-language class example, the grammatical complexity is caused by the attempt to
at an American university: achieve an intricate parallelism. While this extensive parallel
construction is linguistically possible in Arabic, the English lan-
The Contemporary Bedouins, who live in the deserts guage lacks the necessary flexibility. Eight conjunctions and four
of Saudi Arabia, are the successors of the old bedouin sentence connectors are employed in a matter of only fourteen
tribes, the tribes that was fascinated with Mohammad's "sentences." In addition, there are five "lists" of units connected
massage, and on their shoulders Islam built it's em- by commas and conjunctions.
pii'e. I had lived among those.contemporary Bedouins Another paper, also written by an Arabic-speaking student
for a short period of time, and I have learned lots of under comparable circumstances, further demonstrates the same
things about them. I found out that they have retained tendencies:
most of their ancestor's characteristics, inspite of the
hundreds of years that separate them. At that time of the year I was not studying enough to
They are famous of many praiseworthy character- pass my courses in school. And all the time I was ask-
istics, but they are considered to be the symbol of ing my cousin to let me ride the bicycle, but he
generosity; bravery; and self-esteem. Like most of wouldn't let me. But after two weeks, noticing that I
the wandering peoples, a stranger is an undesirable was so much interested in the bicycle, he promised me
person among them. But, once they trust him as a that if I pass my courses in school for that year he
friend, he will be most welcome. Hoever, their trust would give it to me as a present. So I began to study
is a hard thing to gain. And the heroism of many fa- hard. And I studying eight hours a day instead of two.
mous figures, who ventured in the Arabian deserts like My cousin seeing me studying that much he was
T. E. Lawrence, is based on their ability to acquire sure that I was going to succeed in school. So he de-
this dear trust! cided to give me some lessons in riding the.bicycle.
Romance is an important part in their life. And Alter four or five weeks of teaching me and ten or
"love" is an important subject in their verses and their twelve times hurting myself as I used to go out of bal-
tales. ance, I finally knew how to ride it. And the finals in
Nevertheless, they are criticized of many things. school came and I was very good prepared for them so
The worst of all is that they are extremists in all the I passed them. My cousin kept his promise and gave
ways of their lives. It is there extremism that changes me the bicycle as a present. And till now I keep the
sometimes their generosity into squandering, their bicycle in a safe place, and everytime I see it, It re-
bravery into brutality, and their self-esteem into minds me how it helped to pass my courses for that
haughtiness. But' in any case, I have been, and will year.
continue to be greatly interested in this old, fascinat-.
ing group of people. In the first paragraph of this example, four of the five sentences,
or 80% of the sentences, begin with a coordinating element. In the
Disregarding for the moment the grammatical errors in this stu- second paragraph, - three of the six sentences, or 50% of the total,
< 7 cent composition, it becomes apparent that the characteristics of also begin with a coordinating element. In the whole passage,
C,
 10 LANGUAGE LEARNING, VOL. XVI, NOS. 1 & 2 CULTURAL THOUGHT PATTERNS 11

seven of the eleven sentences, or roughly 65%, conform to this sentence, presented as a separate "paragraph," moves still farther
pattern. In addition, the first paragraph contains one internal co- away from definition by expanding the topic to "man" in a generic
ordinator, and the second contains five internal coordinators; thus, sense, as opposed to "non-man." This unit is tied to the next,,
the brief passage (210 words) contains a total of thirteen coordi- also presented as a separate paragraph, by the connecting idea of
nators. It is important to notice that almost all of the ideas in the "civilization" as an aspect of education. The concluding para-
passage are coordinately linked, that there is very little subordi- graph-sentence presents, in the guise of a summary logically de-
nation, and that the parallel units exemplify the types of parallel- rived from previously posited ideas, a conclusion which is in fact
ism already noted. partially a topic sentence and partially a statement that the whole
Some Oriental" writing, on the other hand,' is marked by basic concept of the assignment is so obvious that it does not need
what may be called an approach by indirection. In this kind of discussion. The paper arrives where it should have started, with
writing, the development of the paragraph may be said to be "turn- the added statement that it really had no place to go to begin with.
ing and turning in a widening gyre." The circles or gyres turn The poorer proficiency of this student, however, introduces
around the subject and show it from a variety .of tangential views, two other considerations. It is possible that this student, as an
but the subject is never looked at directly. Things are developed individual rather than as a representative native speaker of Kore-
in terms of what they are not, rather than in terms of what they an, lacks the ability to abstract sufficiently for extended definition.
are. Again, such a development in a modern English paragraph In the case under discussion, however, the student was majoring
'would strike the English reader as awkward and unnecessarily in- in mathematics and did have the ability to abstract in mathemati-
direct. cal terms. While the demands of matheinatics are somewhat dif-
The following composition was written, as a class exercise, ferent from the demands of language in a conventional sense, it is
by a native speaker of Korean, under the same circumstances possible to assume that a student who can handle abstraction in
which produced the two previous examples. Obviously, this student one area can also probably handle it at least to some extent in the
is weaker in general English proficiency than the students who other. It is also possible that the ability to abstract is absent from
produced the two prior examples. the Korean culture. This appears quite unlikely in view of the
abundance of Korean art available and M view of the fact that other
Definition of college education native speakers of Korean have not demonstrated that shortcoming.
College is an institution of an higher learning that The examples cited so far have been student themes. The
gives degrees. All of us needed culture and education following example is from a professional translation. Essentially,
in life, if no education to us, we should to go living hell. the same variations can be observed in it. In this case, the trans-
One of the greatest causes that while other aaimals lation is from French.
have remained as they first man along has, made such
rapid progress is has learned about civilization: The first point to which I would like to call your at- -
The improvement of the highest civilization is in tention is that nothing exists outside the boundary of
order to education up-to-date. what is strictly human. A landscape may be beautiful,
So college education is very important thing which graceful, sublime, insignificant, or ugly; it will never
we don't need mention about it. be ludicrous. We may laugh at an animal, but only be-
cause we have detected in it some human expression
Again, disregarding the typically Oriental grammar and the mis- or attitude. We may laugh at a hat, but we are not
conception of the function of "parts of speech," the first sentence laughing at the piece of felt or straw. We are laughing
defines college, not college education. This may conceivably be a at the shape that men have given to it, the human whim
geoblem bad upon the student's misunderstanding of the assign- whose mold it has assumed. I wonder why a fact so
ment. But the second sentence appears to shoot off in a totally dif- important has not attracted the attention of philoso-
ferent direction. It makes a general statement about culture and phers to a greater degree. Some have defined man as
education, perhaps as results of a college education. The third an animal that knows how to laugh. They could equally
well have defined him as an animal which provokes
laughter; for if any other animal or some lifeless
1 30rieniathere is intended to mean specifically Chinese and Korean but .not Japanese.

r‘,
 CULTURAL THOUGHT PATTERNS 13
12 LANGUAGE LEARNING, VOL. XVI, NOS. 1 & 2
countries. In their childhood, from the first day they
object, achieves the same effect, it is always because
are born, the parents give their children the love and
of some similarity to man.14
attention they need. They teach their children the
In this paragraph, the italicized portion constitutes a digression. meaning of Religion among the family and- to have re-
It is an interesting digression, but it really does not seem to con- spect and obedience for their parents.
tribute significant structural material to the basic thought of the I am Spanish, and I was brought up differently than
paragraph. While the author of the paragraph is a philosopher, the children in America. My parents are stricter and
and a philosopher is often forgiven digressions, the more impor- they taught me discipline and not to interrupt when
tant fact is that the example is a typical one for writers of French •someone was Wiring
as well as for writers of philosophy. Much greater freedom to di-
The next and last example is again not a piece of student
gress or to introduce extraneous material is available in French,
or in Spanish, than in English. writing, but a translation. The original was written in Russian,
and the translation attempts to capture the structure of the origi-
Similar characteristics can be demonstrated in the writing
of native French-speaking students in English. In the interests of nal as much as possible, but without sacrificing meaning com-
keeping this report within some bounds, such illustrations will be pletely.
inserted without comment. The first example was written under On the 14th of October, Kruschev left the stage of
circumstances similar to those described for the preceding stu- history. Was it a plot the result of which was that
dent samples. The writer is a native speaker of French. Kruschev was out of business remains not clear. It is
very probable that even if it were anything resembling
American Traffic law as compared with
Traffic law in Switzerland a plot it would not be for the complete removal of Kru-
schev from political guidance, but rather a pressure
At first glance the traffic law in United States ap-
peared to me simpler than in Switzerland. • exerted to obtain some changes in his policies: for
continuations of his policies of peaceful co-existence
The American towns in general have the dispo-
in international relations or making it as far as possi-
sition of a cross, and for a driver who knows how to
ble a situation to avoid formal rupture with the Chinese
situate himself between the four cardinal points, there
communist party and at any rate not to go unobstructed
is no problem to find his way. Each street has num-
to such a rupture—and in the area of internal politics,
bers going crecendo from the center of the town to the
outside. especially in the section of economics, to continue ef-
forts of a certain softening of "dogmatism," but with-
There are many accidents'in Switzerland, as every-
out the hurried and not sufficiently reasoned experi-
where else, and the average of mortality comparatively
mentation, which became the characteristic traits of
to the proportion of the countries is not better than in
Kruschev's politics in recent years.15
United States. We have the problem of straight streets,
not enough surveillance by policemen on the national Some of the difficulty in this paragraph is linguistic rather than
roads, and alcohol. The country of delicious wines has rhetorical. The structure of the Russian sentence is entirely dif-
made too many damages. ferent from the structure of the English sentence. But some of -
the linguistic difficulty is closely related to the rhetorical diffi-
The following illustration, drawn .from the work of a native speak-
culty. The above paragraph is composed of three sentences. The -
er of Latin American Spanish, was produced under conditions par-
allel to those already cited: first two are very short, while the last is extremely long, consti-
tuting about three quarters of the paragraph. It is made up of a
The American. Children series of presumably parallel constructions and a number of sub-
In America, the American children are brought ordinate structures. At least half of„these are irrelevant to the
differently from the rest of the children in other
14 From 15From S. Scbsartz, **After Kruschev," trans. E. B. Kaplan, The Socklist Courier
Laughter, An Assay on the Meaning of the Comic,
Trans. Marcel Bolomet (April, 1965), p. 3.
(Paris, 1900).
14 LANGUAGE LEARNING, VOL. XVI, NOS. 1 & 2 CULTURAL THOUGHT PATTERNS 15

central idea of the paragraph in the sense that they are parentheti- discussed above may be graphically represented in the following
cal amplifications of structurally related subordinate elements. manner:
There are, of course, other examples that might be dis-
cussed as well, but these paragraphs may suffice to show that English Semitic Oriental Romance Russian
each language and each culture has a paragraph order unique to
itself, and that part of the learning of a particular language is the
mastering of its logical system.
. . .0ne should join to any logic of the language a
phenomenology of the spoken word. Moreover, this
phenomenology will, in its turn, rediscover the idea
of a logos immanent in the language; but it will seek
the justification for this in a more general philosophy Much more detailed and more accurate descriptions are required
of the relations between man and the world. . . . before any meaningful contrastive system can be elaborated.
From one culture to another it is possible to establish Nonetheless, an important problem exists immediately. In the
communication. The Rorschach test has been success- teaching of English as a second language, what does one do with
fully applied to the natives of the island of Alor.16 the student -who is reasonably proficient in the use of syntactic
structure but who needs to learn to write themes, theses, essay
This discussion is not intended to offer any criticism of examinations, and dissertations? The "advanced" student has long
other existing paragraph developments; rather it is intended only constituted a problem for teachers of English as a second language.
to demonstrate that paragraph developments other than those nor- This approach, the contrastive analysis of rhetoric, is offered as
mally regarded as desirable in English do exist. In the teaching of one possible answer to the existing need. Such an approach has
paragraph structure to foreign students, whether in terms of read- the advantage that it may help the foreign student to form stand-
ing or in terms of composition, the teacher must be himself ards of judgement consistent with the demands made upon him by
aware of these differences, and . he must make these differences the educational system of which he has become a part. At the
overtly apparent to his students. In short, contrastive rhetoric same time, by accounting for the cultural aspects of logic which
must be taught in the same sense that contrastive grammar is underlie the rhetorical structure, this approach may bring the stu-
presently taught. Now not much has been done in the area of con- dent not only to an understanding of contrastive grammar and a
trastive rhetoric. It is rrst necessary to arrive at accurate de- new vocabulary, which are parts of any reading task, but also to a
scriptions of existing paragraph orders other than those common grasp of idea and structure in units larger than the sentence. A
to English. Furthermore, it is necessary to understand that these sentence, after all, rarely exists outside a context. Applied lin-
categories are in 'no sense meant to be mutually exclusive. Pat- guistics teaches the student to deal with the sentence, but it is
terns may be derived for typical English paragraphs, but para- necessary to bring the student beyond that to a comprehension of
graphs like those described abo.ve as being atypical in English do the whole context. He can only understand the whole context if he
exist in English. By way of obvious example, Ezra Pound writes recognizes the logic on which the context is based. The foreign
paragraphs which are circular in their structure, and William student who has mastered the syntax of English may still write a
Faulkner writer paragraphs which are wildly digressive. The bad paragraph or a bad paper unless he also masters the logic of
paragraph being discussed here is not( The "literary" paragraph, English. '7n serious expository prose, the paragraph tends to be a
however, but the expository paragraph. The necessities of art logical, rather than a typographical, unit."1 The understanding of
impose structures on any language, while the requirements of paragraph patterns can allow the student to relate syntactic ele-
communication can often be best solved by relatively close adhe- ments within a paragraph and perhaps even to relate paragraphs
sion to established patterns. within a total context.
Superficially, the movement of the various paragraphs Finally, it is necessary to recognize the fact that a

I 6Dufrenne, pp. 39-40. "Hans P. Guth, A Short Neu. Rhetoric (Belmont, California, 1964), p. 205.
t.
 16 LANGUAGE LEARNING, VOL. XVI, NOS. 1 & 2 CULTURAL THOUGHT PATTERNS 17

paragraph is an artificial thought unit employed in the written market are crammed with their varicolored cloaks looking
language to suggest a cohesion which commonly may not exist in Indians, their dark skins like a mass of palette colors
oral language. "Paragraphing, like punctuation, is a feature only glistening like copper or smeared together. In the open
of the written language."18 As an artificial unit of thought, it bronze in the bright sun, plaza outside the market the
lends itself to patterning quite readily. In fact, since it is im- their varicolored cloaks crowd mills about. A kind of
posed from without, and since it is a frame for the structuring of looking like a mass of pal- blending of Indian talk in vari-
thought into patterns, it is by its very nature patterned. The ette colors smeared to- ous dialects creates a strange
rhetorical structures of English paragraphs may be found in any gether. droning noise. A jackass brays;
good composition text.19 The patterns of paragraphs in other a turkey cock gobbles; a dog
3. There is the smell of ani-
languages are not so well established, or perhaps only not so well mal dung mingled with the yelps; a church bell clangs. On
known to speakers of English. These patterns need to be discov- odor of carnations and heli- the narrow sidewalks, merchan-
ered or uncovered and compared with the patterns of English in otrope from the flower dise is spread so haphazardly
order to arrive at a practical means for the teaching of such stalls. that in order to pass, pedestri-
structures to non-native users of the language. In the open plaza outside the ans have to press against the
4.
In the interim, while research is directed at the rhetorics market the crowd mills wall or leap the displays.
of other languages, certain practical pedagogical devices have about. Wrinkled old women squat over
been developed to expedite the teaching of rhetorical structures 5. Mothers sit on the curb charcoal braziers cooking corn
to non-native speakers of English. An elementary device con- nursing their babies. cakes, or black beans, or pink
sists simply of supplying to the students a scrambled paragraph.
6. A kind of blending of Indian coconut candy. Mothers sit on
A normal paragraph, such as the one cited from Macaulay above, talk in various dialects the curb nursing their babies.
may be arbitrarily scrambled, the sentences numbered, and the creates a strange droning There is the smell of animal
students asked to rearrange the sentences in what appears to noise. dung mingled with the odor of
them to be a normal order. Frequently, the results of such an 7. On the narrow sidewalks, carnations and heliotrope from
assignment will demonstrate the diversity of views or cultures merchandise is spread so the flower stalls.20
represented in the classroom. The exercise can be used effective- haphazardly that in order to
ly to point out the very disparity. The students must then be pre- piss, pedestrians have to [This paragraph is descriptive,
sented with the original version of the paragraph, and the in- press against the wall or presented in the present tense,
structor must be able to explain and justify the order of the origi- and arranged perceptually in
nal. leap the displays.
8. Wrinkled old women squat the order of sight, hearing, and
[INSTRUCTIONS: Arrange the [This is the order in which the over charcoal braziers cook- smell.]
sentences below into some author arranged his sentences. ing corn cakes, or black
normal order.] Cap you detect his reason?] beans, or pink coconut candy.
Scrambled Order Normal Order A second device consists of giving the students carefully
written topic sentences, arranged in some convenient way such as
1 A jackass brays; a turkey The narrow streets and lanes
that sugge.sted below, and then asking the students to fill out the
cock gobbles; a dog yelps; leading into the market are subdivisions of the topic sentence with examples and illustrations
a church bell clangs. (' crammed with Indians, their chosen to support the point. Depending upon the relative difficulty
2. The narrow streets and dark skins glistening like cop- of the topic, the examples may be supplied by the instructor in
lane s leading into the per or bronze in the bright sun,
scrambled order.
- ■
"Edward P. J. Corbett, Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student
(New York, 1965),
American Television
p. 416.
American commercial television appears to consist cc
19Important work in the rhetoric of the paragraph is being done by Francis Christensen,
among others. See especially "A Generative Rhetoric of the Paragraph," College Cornposi-
of three principle classes of material: programs of
lion and Communication (October, 1965), pp. 144-156. Mexico (New York, 1947).
2OHudson Strode, "The Market at Toluca," Nou in
 18 LANGUAGE LEARNING, VOL. XVI, NOS. 1 & 2 CULTURAL THOUGHT PATTERNS 19

serious interest, such as news broadcasts and special teaching the outline may be found illustrated in a number of texts
features; programs intended primarily as entertain- for both American and foreign students.21
ment, such as variety shows, situation comedies, and It is important to impress upon the student that "A para-
adventure tales; and the advertisements which link all graph is clear when each sentence contributes to the central
of these. thought. . jand that] clarity also demands coherence, that is, an
I. Programs of serious interest: orderly flow of sentences marked by repetition of key ideas." 22
A. News Broadcasts: While it is necessary for the non-native speaker learning
1. English to master the rhetoric of the English paragraph, it must
2. be remembered that the foreign student, ideally, will be returning
B. Special Features: to his home country, and that his stay in the United States is a
- 1. brief one. Under these circumstances, English is a means to an
2. end for him; it is not an end in itself. Edward Sapir has written:
II. Programs intended primarily as entertainment: An oft-noted peculiarity of the development of culture
A. Variety Shows: is the fact that it reaches its greatest heights in com-
1. paratively small, autonomous groups. In fact, it is
2. doubtful if a genuine culture ever properly belongs to
B. Situational Comedies: more than such a restricted group, a group between the
1. members of which there can be said to be something
2. like direct intensive spiritual contact. This direct con-
C. Adventure Tales: tact is enriched by the common cultural heritage on
1. which the minds of all are fed. . . . A narrowly local-
2. ized culture may, and often does, spread its influence
III. Advertising: far beyond its properly restricted sphere. Sometimes
A. it sets the pace for a whole nationality, for a far flung
1. empire. It can do so, however, only at the expense of
2. diluting the spirit as it moves away from its home, of
B. degenerating into an imitative attitudinizing."23
1.
2. He is absolutely correct in pointing out the dangers of spreading
a culture too thin and too far from home. However, in •the special
IV. [Conclusion:]' case of the foreign student learning English, under the conditions
stipulated above, the imitation which would be an error in most
[INSTRUCTIONS: The student is to supply contrasting cases is the sought aim. The classes which undertake the training
examples for each of the spaces provided under items of the "advanced" student can aim for no more. The creativity and
I and II. In item HI the student must also supply the
imagination which make the difference between competent writing
main subdivisions, and in item IV the point of the whole and excellent writing are things which, at least in these circum-
essay must also be supplied by the student. Obviously, stances, cannot be taught. The foreign student is an adult in most .
item IV will vary considerably depending upon the kinds cases. If these thiAgs are teachable, they will already have been
of illustrations selected to fill the blanks.)
21At the risk of being accused of immodesty, I would recommend in particular the
The illustration constitutes a very simple exercise. Greater section entitled "Outlining" in kobert B. Kaplan, Reading and Rhetoric (New York, 1963).
pp. 69-80.
sophistication may be employed as the student becomes more
22 Francis Connolly, .4 Rhetoric Casebook (New York, 1953), p. 304.
familiar with the techniques. Obviously, too, the outline must be 23 Edward Sapir, "Culture, Genuine and Spurious," Culture. Language and Personal-
introduced and taught simultaneously. A simple technique for ity, (Los Angeles 1964), pp. 113-14.
20 LANGUAGE LEARNING, VOL. XVI, NOS. 1 & 2

taught to him. The English class must not aim too high. Its func-
tion is to provide the student with a form within which he may
operate, a form acceptable in this time and in this place. It is
hoped that the method described above may facilitate the achieve-
ment of that goal.