Culture and Writing

A systematic study of culture vis-à-vis writing started in earnest with the publication of Kaplan’s (1966) famous article in Language Learning. In this article, Kaplan discusses how writers’ thought patterns are related to their cultural backgrounds, and how this cultural influence is reflected in the ways writers organize their ideas in the texts they produce. Consequently, writers from different cultural backgrounds, and by implication, using different languages, write differently. It follows, then, that someone writing  in a language other than  their first language (L1) is likely to diverge from the ways in which ideas are typically organized in writing in that language. This means that native users of a given language are likely to find the writings of non-native users to be divergent, and thus more difficult to follow. Kaplan’s work formed the basis of Contrastive Rhetoric (CR), an area of research in Writing Studies that explores the various dimensions of cultural impacts on one’s writing. As much as Kaplan’s theory of CR was later criticized due to its narrow conceptualization of culture, it is widely recognized to have provided critical insights into cultural impacts on writing (Li, 2014).

Like Kaplan, many post-process composition theorists, such as Patricia Bizzell, John Trimbur, C. H. Knoblauch, Lil Brannon, and Mina Shaughnessy also discuss the role of social and cultural factors in shaping the writing process. This is a departure from an exclusively cognitive-centered approach to the writing process that was prevalent in the 1980s. Bizzell (1992), for example, maintains that individual performance differences in writing are not due to differences of individual talents in writing but because of the differences of social groups that individuals belong to.  She further argues that differences in writing performance correlate differences of social groups and that poor performance in writing correlates less privileged social groups.  Thus, according to Bizzell, students’ struggle in academic writing is not because of their cognitive or linguistic deficiency, but because of their cultural unfamiliarity with academic registers and practices of the privileged academic discourse community (see Trimbur, 1994, p. 117). Shaughnessy’s (1977) analysis of successive drafts of unskilled writers also led her to conclude that writing constitutes a socialization process – one that brings the writer in line with a set of discursive conventions shared by the readers. A corollary of this is that by taking part in the writing process, the writer starts sharing the thinking patterns and worldviews of the readers (see Bizzell, 1992, p. 190). This line of scholarship, then, highlights the pivotal role of the sociocultural milieu to which a certain group of writers belong in shaping, and helping understand, their writing processes.

As much as social and cultural factors have been referenced in scholarly discussions of writing and in writing studies, the notion of culture has over the years stirred a great deal of debate. In fact, there is a lack of an all-encompassing conceptualization of culture, making it one of the most difficult words in English (Atkinson, 2016). Despite this, scholars acknowledge “the explanatory value” (Atkinson, 2016, p. 560) of the notion of culture, particularly in L2 writing.

Culture has been conceptualized variously by different scholars in the context of L2 writing. Since providing a comprehensive overview of the term culture is beyond the scope of this chapter, I will focus only on a few relevant conceptualizations. Specifically, I will discuss the culture concept as addressed by prominent applied linguists and TESOL specialists, given the close lineage of these fields to composition studies in general and L2 writing in particular (e.g., Matsuda, 1999). Based on the extensive work that Atkinson (1999, 2003, 2004, 2016) has undertaken on the topic of culture vis-à-vis TESOL and L2 writing, three main themes of the conceptualization of culture emerge. They can be roughly categorized as follows: : (a) a received view of culture, (b) a critical, post-modernist view of culture, and (c) a “middle-ground” view of culture. A received notion of culture relates to the culture concept as it is understood by the common-sensical knowledge of a community of individuals. For instance, this may include the culture of an ethnic group or a nation state. A critical, post-modernist view of culture problematizes the notion itself by identifying the complexities and hybridity of modern life, which is in perpetual flux – in essence, making it almost impossible to conceptualize culture in neatly defined terms and clearly demarcated boundaries. Instead, culture is conceptualized as a constantly changing, highly flexible notion that has multiple meanings, depending on its context of usage. Finally, the “middle-ground” notion of culture relates to both social (out-in-the-world) and cognitive (individual) aspects of human existence. According to this perspective, and in alignment with Vygotsky’s (1978) sociocultural theory, this particular view of culture posits that both homogeneity and heterogeneity are inherent to human beings. That is, social (and cultural) systems exist only in abstract or virtual forms; they take concrete shapes only when humans act on them. In other words, while all humans invariably find themselves in some forms of sociocultural milieu, it is the interaction between the humans’ agentive selves and the sociocultural milieu that gives shape to a concrete cultural phenomenon.

While Atkinson’s (1999) discussion helps us understand the broad-brush orientations to culture, it is important to discuss two important works separately because of their direct relevance to the current chapter. It must be noted, however, that both these works have been implicated in Atkinson’s (e.g., 2016) theorization of culture discussed above. Focusing on plagiarism from a cultural perspective, Pennycook (1996) notes how the concept of originality has its roots in the growth and valorization of individualism in the West. Thus, the notion of plagiarism, as it is understood in the West, is a culturally constructed one and has potentially different meanings, for example, in the context of China. Furthermore, Pennycook (1996) showed that the notion of plagiarism insufficiently describes the many behaviors and motivations behind using others’ texts illegitimately (e.g., Atkinson, 2016). The other study that is important to mention here is that of Holliday’s (1999). Holliday’s conceptualization of “small cultures” is a departure from dichotomous and overarching cultural categories such as the culture of the West or culture of the East. For Holliday (1999), having a small-culture concept helps us avoid essentializing and reifying various cultural categories by recognizing different cohesive groups as small cultures under the so-called large cultures. As a result, small cultures shift our focus from cultural products to cultural processes, underlining the importance of recognizing the dynamic nature of various cultural constructions (Atkinson, 2016, pp. 552-553). Holliday’s (1999) theorization of small cultures is particularly useful in the context of writing, as it enables us to critically analyze how writing is accomplished in the confluence of various small cultures such as those related to classrooms, programs, disciplines, and institutions, to name a few.

As the above discussion indicates, culture is a complex notion and there is little agreement among scholars about how it should be conceptualized. As a result, much of the scholarly work has focused primarily on critiquing the concept. While the process has enriched our understanding of culture from a variety of perspectives, it has contributed little to practical applications of this concept  in pedagogical contexts. Specifically, although writing scholars have underscored the value of the culture concept in explaining various phenomena in written text production (e.g., Atkinson, 2016), very little has been accomplished with regard to how the concept can be used for pedagogical purposes to help students learn about cultural impacts on written text production. An initial endeavor in this regard is to utilize a specific culture framework by both recognizing the importance of the culture concept in writing pedagogy and acknowledging the inherent limitations of a single culture framework. Another important consideration in this regard is that cultural lines depend on “the focus of our attention and [are] very pliable” and that “culture is not destiny, but an inescapable context in which we live and grow” (Li, 2014, p. 105). Because of these reasons, for the purpose of the current chapter, I will focus on the culture framework developed by Flowerdew and Miller (1995) and explore its application to the classroom practices and shed insights into the ownership of written text production. . Formulated primarily on a received notion of culture (Atkinson, 1999), Flowerdew and Miller’s  culture framework seems to be suitable for pedagogical practices as recent empirical research has indicated that most L2 writers align themselves with a received notion of culture in their writing practices (Bhowmik et al., 2021). Furthermore,  a received, common-sensical framework is likely to provide students with a foundation on which they can further expand their knowledge of the complex notion of culture. A second, and in my opinion, a more important reason  for using Flowerdew and Miller’s framework pertains to  its applicability to academic writing, as Flowerdew (2015) has shown through his analysis of doctoral student writing. While a four-dimensional conceptualization of culture avoids cultural stereotyping, each of its four dimensions provides a critical lens through which a piece of writing can be analyzed to elicit its cultural underpinnings. For classroom pedagogy, teachers can draw on this four-dimensional culture framework through which students should be encouraged to view all tasks related to writing. With this background, we now turn to the culture framework by Flowerdew and Miller (1995).