3.3.3 Influencing factors of the differences betwe...
AEs and ANEs in this dissertation,which are labeled as L1 and L2 writers in some related researches(e.g.,Farrell,1997;Hyland,1998b,2003)are different in various dimensions such as philosophical concepts,cultural backgrounds,educational systems,etc.These differences will influence their writing conventions and writing styles.As to the use of conjunctive resources,Silva(1993)finds that Anglo-American academic English tends to employ more recent citations,fewer rhetorical questions,and more sentence connectors(such as therefore and however).Comparatively,L2 writers are distinct and less effective(in the eyes of L1 readers)than L1 writers.In his(Silva,1993:665-668)investigation,L2 writers’texts are characterized by simpler structure,more coordination,less subordination,less noun modification and less passivization.Almeida(1984)mentions that L2 writers use fewer lexical ties in their writing.Connor(1984)and Mahmoud(1983)also point out that L2 writers exhibit fewer collocations.
There are some influencing factors about the remarkable differences in the use of linguistic resources such as CMs.Thacher(2004:311)proposes three variables in the cross-cultural comparison:relations of individuals to groups,applications of rules and roles of context in communication.This dissertation outlines four influencing factors:(1)different cultural backgrounds,specifically,different writing conventions;(2)different roles of authors and readers;(3).different kinds of cultural shifts and(4).different rhetorical patterns.
Firstly,AEs and ANEs are different in the cultural backgrounds,especially,in the writing conventions,thus the role of CMs is different in English and other languages.ANEs will be influenced by the writing conventions of their first language and it is clear that it is more difficult for ANEs in achieving publication in English journals because of the language problems.Bitchener & Basturkmen(2006)propose that English proficiency can not exclusively explain Chinese EFL learners’difficulties in English writing.Thus non-English speaking writers such as Chinese writers need more explicit understanding of English writing conventions.
Secondly,the role of the authors and readers are different in the writings of AEs and ANEs.The different author-reader constructions can be reflected in the research of politeness or“face”.For instance,Tirkkonen-Condit(1996)claims that as within Asian cultures,silence in Finnish culture is valued greatly and showing disagreement is considered as being impolite.He(Tirkkonen-Condit,1996)terms this kind of culture as communication-reticent culture,in which people incline to emphasize the role of readers and refrain from the face threatening acts.
Thirdly,AEs and ANEs face different discourse communities when they are writing,so the types of cultural shifts are different.Both of AEs and ANEs should argue,interpret,explain or evaluate their opinions completely and persuasively.Crowhurst(1991:314)notes that arguing a topic is specially challenging,even though it is very significant both for academic success and for general life purposes.ANEs will find it more challenging when arguing in English since their prior experiences could place an additional constraint on them when compared with AEs.Lee(2006:5)maintains that ANEs should not only pay attention to the target culture but also keep the particular academic discourse community in mind,but AEs only need to learn communicating within one culture,when they enter into the particular specialist discourse community within their own culture.When analyzing students’compositions with their L2,Hyland(2009:6)finds that students’first language and prior learning are influential to the ways of organising ideas and structuring arguments.ANEs are required to reduce the complexities of a given culture into a framework that permits comparison with the Western culture(e.g.Bhawuk & Triandis,1996).
Fourthly,Kaplan’s(1966)contrastive rhetoric is of great influence to the cross-cultural differences between AEs and ANEs in the structure of an argument.In his hypothesis,language determines thought patterns which in turn determine the rhetorical patterns.Based on the psycholinguistic hypothesis,many scholars(e.g.,Mohan & Lo,1985;Eggington,1987;Choi,1988;Kubota,1998;Hirose,2001)have indulged into the research of the academic research constructed by East-Asian groups.It is found in the researches that the contrastive pattern centers on the issues of“indirect-direct,inductive-deductive,specific-general”(Lee,2006:21)dichotomy,which in turn influence the affecting quality of argument.According to Hirose(2001),the inductively organised Japanese texts seem to receive lower evaluations.Hall(1976)makes a famous distinction between high-context and low-context culture.For the authors from non-English speaking countries,especially from East-Asian countries,they present a tendency towards high context-dependence,which results in“implicitness or lack of argumentation proper”(Tirkkonen-Condit,1996).Comparatively,AEs tend to low-context dependence in which they incline to express themselves in a direct and explicit way.
Apart from the influence of cultural backgrounds,different roles of the reader-author constructions,different cultural shifts in discourse communities,and different rhetoric patterns,Lee(2006:22)points out that there are other factors which will lead to the differences of AEs and ANEs in their English writings:ANEs’L1 writing skill(Kubota,1998),ANEs’limited proficiency in L2(Mohan & Lo,1985),lack of the experience in writing within Western cultural conventions(Eggington,1987;Choi,1988;Shi,2002),etc.All of these factors can shed light on the teaching and learning L2 writing in English.