Intercultural Rhetoric and Reading Comprehension in a Second Language

Abstract

Intercultural rhetoric has been studied in the context of second language writing for many decades. This article looks at the topic from a new perspective and offers an experimental study of the effects of intercultural rhetoric on reading comprehension. The experiment was set in Hong Kong, China, and assessed the reading comprehension (using a rational cloze design and quantitative and qualitative recall protocols) of 490 school students who were presented with four rhetorically different texts. Results suggest that the rhetoric of the students’ first language (Chinese) had clear effects on reading comprehension.

Notes

*p < .01.

*p < .05.

1. Although this is the generally accepted (received) view of culture, alternatives have been offered suggesting a more chaotic hybrid brought on by globalization and world capitalism (sometimes called a postmodern view; Atkinson, 2004).

2. Cantonese is spoken by approximately 66 million people in southern China and is sometimes described as a dialect of Mandarin (Putonghua).