Contrastive Rhetoric in Letter Writing: The Interaction of Linguistic Proficiency and Cultural Awareness

This study examines the relationship between japanese college students'
proficiency in English and their cultural awareness toward a target-language
culture (North American). japanese EFL students were divided into four groups
according to high and low English proficiency and high and low cultural
awareness based on performance on the CELT and the researchers' cultural
awareness (CA) test. The four groups wrote college and scholarship application
letters. The letters were analyzed in terms of frequency and content of different
Semantic Formulas. The results show that subjects with both high English
proficiency and high cultural awareness manifested the rhetorical patterns closest
to those in the native speakers' English letters of application. Subjects with low
English proficiency and low cultural awareness showed the rhetorical patterns
closest to those in the japanese letters of application. Subjects who lacked either
the sufficient level of English proficiency or cultural awareness produced writing
which varied from the target style. Results indicate that cultural awareness may
be as important an element as English ability in student writing.