20th Annual Student Research Conference
Language & Literature
Issues in Contrastive Rhetoric: Bridging the Gap Between English and Arabic
Andrea E. Cluck
Dr. Sally Cook, Faculty Mentor
In today’s interconnected world, enormous potential exists for intercultural dialogue in academia and beyond. But without the tools to facilitate this, academic discourse across languages reflects the problems of globalization rather than helping correct them. It is vital that we understand that a language is more than just words: it is a people’s way of looking at life and expressing thoughts. One such tool that can be used to illustrate this is contrastive rhetoric, the comparative study of languages on the level of thought organization. This paper addresses issues that come up when a non-native speaker of English must communicate his thoughts to an American university audience. Contrastive rhetoric is applied to Modern Standard Arabic and American English to show the inherent differences between languages. The goal is to help students effectively communicate in a second language and aid native speakers in addressing the dangers of assumed cultural superiority.
Keywords: Arabic, Contrastive Rhetoric, ESL, language, English , communication, globalization, teaching theory
Topic(s):English
Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: 8-2
Location: OP 2113
Time: 8:30 am