A Studty of Cross-Cultural Rhetorical Structure on Efl Students' Reading Performance

Abstract

The study was undertaken to investigate the question; would EFL students' reading performance be affected by different linguistic contexts when reading expository texts? It was a comprehension and preference examining whether inductive versus deductive structure is better understood and preferable for Taiwanese college freshmen. Specifically, this study, from the perspective of EFL students, explored whether culture-specific rhetorical structured texts affect EFL students' reading comprehension and recall. Four reading passages verified as inductively and deductively structured, were given to four groups of 163 EFL college freshmen according to their leve1s of English reading proficiency. Each groups read two passages in the opposite structure, either an inductive or deductive structure over a one week period for two weeks in a row. After reading each passage, four groups of students answered a set of 10 multiple-choice comprehension questions about the material covered in that text. The results showed that rhetorical text structure did have an effect on EFL students' reading comprehension. The reading text with a deductive organization was better comprehended by EFL students; they revealed quantitative differences in favor of the reading passage written with a deductive rhetorical structure. In addition, the high language proficiency students performed higher within the two reading passages in both the inductive rhetorical text structure, and in the deductive rhetorical text structure than did other levels. By comparison, the low language proficiency group scored lower within the two reading passages both in inductive and in deductive structured texts. Nevertheless, Chinese inductive rhetorical organization did not have cultural-specific preferences on EFL students. This study also proved that lack of second or foreign language proficiency may then be a primary cause of poor second language reading.