6.4 Discussion of the Cultural-Linguistic Differen...
The comparison of CMs in the EAPs written by AEs and ANEs are analyzed and explained above.It is found that AEs use the CMFEs and CMCEs more frequently and more diversely than ANEs.
Academic writing is usually considered as being interactive and social.Okamura & Shaw(2000:1)point out that“composing a text requires writers to understand the readers’expectations,which are partly determined by culture”.It has been proved that members of the same subculture share similar expectations,knowledge and conventions,but the discourse might be different according to culture membership.Kaplan(1966)conducts the study of contrastive rhetoric by proposing that how language is chosen and organised is language and culture specific.Following the researches of Clyne(1987),Eggington(1987)and Taylor &Chen(1991),the rhetorical differences at the professional level are different from linguistic-cultural backgrounds.For example,by comparing the introductions of academic paper,Taylor & Chen(1991)point out that the rhetorical differences among professional authors are not obvious.Okamura & Shaw(2000:10)propose that the most significant problem of the non-native English authors is linguistic,i.e.,that they could not have control of the linguistic expressions expected by the natives.Thus it is necessary to go beyond linguistic descriptions to consider the influence of linguistic-cultural conventions so as to understand the similarities and differences of the distribution of CMs in the EAPs written by AEs and ANEs.According to Thatcher(2004:318),there are a lot of intercultural variables such as relations of individuals to groups,applications of rules,roles of context in communication,education,and assumptions about technology,etc.
For the purpose of the current research,it is restricted to four areas which are closely related with the different distributions of CMs in the EAPs written by AEs and ANEs.This dissertation argues that AEs and ANEs should face different writing conventions,different roles of authors and readers,different cultural-transitions,and different rhetorical patterns when they are writing EAPs.
Firstly,different writing conventions of the authors in academic communities can affect the use of CMs.In the dissertation,it is found that AEs who are influenced heavily by English academic conventions employ CMs more frequently than ANEs who use a different language in a different cultural background.That is to say,it is more challenging for ANEs to write at an appropriate level for publication in international journals.Flowerdew(2000:16)presents the statement of one scholar from Hongkong who talks about his problems in his writing:
I think Hong Kong scholars to be published in international journals is real hard.I think first of all it’s the language problem.I think the journal editors’first impression of your manuscript they discover that it is not written by a native-speaker—no matter how brilliant your idea they will have the tendency to reject.(Flowerdew,2000:16)
In non English-speaking countries,especially in China,CMs sometimes are not necessary between two clauses such as“我在看书”and“他也在看书”,and the CM such as“同时”,“并且”can be omitted.But in English,the CM and is indispensable in the clause complex I am reading,and he is reading,too.Although the professionals from non-English speaking countries will try their best to weaken the influence of the L1 writing style in order to look for acceptance in the English discourse community by having their work published,they will more or less label effect of being a non-native speaker in their papers.As a result,in order to construct authorial stance,AEs seem to be more positive to express themselves by using explicit CMs while ANEs tend to use more implicit CMs.
Secondly,the distinction of the roles of both the authors and the readers can affect the use of CMs.According to Hinds(2001),English is categorized as an author-responsible language,as opposed to Chinese,Koran and Japanese,which are reader-responsible languages.In the EAPs written by AEs,the responsibility and the assumption of shared knowledge are constrained,while in the EAPs written by ANEs,the readers bear a heavy responsibility and assume a high degree of shared knowledge.Therefore,AEs expect more from the readers.CMs can be used to express the authors’attitudes and judgements,and obviously appear more frequently in the AE EAPs.It can be assumed that ANEs tend to use more implicit CMs since they transfer the responsibility to the readers and do not explicitly undertake the responsibility themselves.Mauranen(2001)notes that Finnish writers tend to use more implicit rhetorical style while Anglo-American writers incline more explicit styles,and concludes that Finnish writers would like to show respect for the the readers’knowledge and therefore avoid using many obvious interpersonal expressions.Comparatively,the Anglo-American authors lay emphasis on their own opinions and try to use many overt interpersonal expressions to make the text easily understood.Kamimura & Oi(1998)also prove that American authors incline to persuade and align their readers by using logical reasoning,such as employing conjunctive resources,while Japanese authors tend to use emotional expressions to evoke empathy of their readers.Lee(2006:303)compare the use of so called expectancy resources such as condition,result,insurance,etc.between authors from Anglo-American countires and those from China.He(Lee,2006:303)found that Chinese authors do not use explicit expectancy resources such as counterfactual grammatical structure(e.g.,if I had-ed,I would have...).What’s more,Lee(2006)points out that AEs are writer-oriented authors who would like to bear the responsibilities in low context while ANEs favour high-context dependence and incline to leave the responsibilities to the readers.
Thirdly,apart from the different roles of the readers and the authors,AEs and ANEs need to face different kinds of cultural shifts.ANEs need to adapt to two kinds of culture:from native culture to target culture and from the conventions in the daily life to the academic community.That is to say,ANEs have to go through a“a double culture shift”(Ballad,1984:53),and they have to be involved in“communicating across cultures”as well as in learning to“communicate between cultures”(Liddicoat,1997:13).AEs are only required to face the particular professional discourse within their own culture,i.e.,to communicate within a culture.Scholars(Swales,1990;Bhatia,1993;Becher,1995;Jordan,1997)find that the main reason of the problems or inefficiencies that writers or students of non-English speaking background face in writing can be attributed to their unfamiliarity with the Western academic culture and community.ANEs might be unfamiliar with the English writing conventions of different disciplines in academic discourse,and thus they incline to use CMs in the way they do in general writing.
Fourthly,AEs and ANEs are different in the rhetorical patterns,which also influence their choice of CMs.Based on Section 3.2.3,Lee(2006:21)lists the“indirect-direct,inductive-deductive,specificgeneral”dichotomy,which in turn influence the evaluative quality of argument.ANE EAPs are inductive,indirect and specific,which seem to receive lower evaluations(Hirose,2001),and hence less CMs are used.
Table 6.15 Characteristics of AEs and ANEs in the distribution of CMs in the dissertation
In fact,apart from the four dimensions,there are many other factors that cause the differences between AEs and ANEs.Since these factors are not so closely related with the research in the current study,so they are not discussed in detail.