L2 Professional Writing in a US and South American Context

Abstract

Using research methods that assess cross-cultural rhetorical differences at three levels, this study explores two cases of professional writing among US and South American personnel in one multinational organization in Quito, Ecuador. One major rhetorical difference was the pronounced need of many of the South Americans for historical and contextual information. In addition, the US writer consistently re-worked the concrete and particular patterns of the South Americans into more abstract and universal patterns for his US audiences. Finally, many of the South American documents exhibited accumulated logical structures, which the US writer revised to be more analytical for his US audiences. These differences in history, context, particularism, and accumulative logic seemed to reflect very predominant cultural patterns because they correlated closely with other cross-cultural studies. However, some rhetorical differences such as originality and hypercodification reflected local usage while others, such as distance and procedures, seemed based on personal choice and adaptation to specific audiences. Thus, this study exemplifies the larger, cultural and rhetorical patterns that seem central to basic theories of contrastive rhetoric, but it also highlights the exceptions and preferences that are based on local and individual needs.