Cultural Meaning and Contrastive Rhetoric in English Education

The focus of this paper is on one aspect of the relationship between language and culture, that of cultural meaning and rhetorical style in writing across traditions of literacy. The paper adopts the approach of ‘socially realistic linguistics’ (Labov, 1972: xiii) and questions the assumptions of contrastive rhetoric in the context of English education around the world. It proposes a methodology of contrastive rhetorical research, based on Halliday’s notion of ‘meaning potential’ (Halliday, 1978), which takes into account the evidence provided by research on writing in the Inner Circle, language socialization, traditions of literacy, and writing in the multilingual and multicultural context of the Outer Circle (B. Kachru, 1985). Finally, it points out the educational implications of the suggested approach to contrastive rhetoric for enriching the writing experience of all users of English, whether they come from the Inner, Outer, or Expanding Circle of English.