UCI Influence of First Language and Home Culture on Second Language Writing Essay

Guidelines

Your argumentative essay will be based on the four articles about the intercultural differences in writing that we have discussed altogether in class. It should include six main components:

? Component 1: Brief background information about the topic of the essay (in the Introduction).

? Component 2: Your argument/thesis statement connected with the intercultural differences in writing (in the Introduction).

? Component 3: Some evidence from all or some of the four articles supporting your argument/thesis statement (in the Body of the essay).

? Component 4: A possible counter-argument related to your argument/thesis statement (in the Body of the essay).

? Component 5: Your reasonable objections to the counter-argument supported by the information in all or some of the four articles (in the Body of the essay).

? Component 6: Your personal conclusions about the importance of the topic as well as its potential future prospects and/or expected future trends in its further development (in the Conclusion).

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Other Important Considerations

? Your writing should follow MLA conventions.

? In your essay, you are expected to use all four articles for defending your argument and/or for objecting to the counter-argument in a reasonable and well-justified way.

? It is not required for this assignment, but it’s allowed to use other academic sources in your argumentative essay as well.

? The full list of the outside sources cited in the essay should be provided on a separate “Works Cited” page.

? The essay should include a title page formatted according to MLA rules and standards; but it doesn’t need to have an MLA header in the left upper corner of the first page after the title page.

? The essay needs to have a title reflecting its main idea; it means that the title of the essay needs to be directly connected with the writer’s main argument/thesis statement (e. g. “Possible Influence of a Person’s First Language and Home Culture on His/Her Second Language Writing”); the title should be not longer than 20 words in total.

? Your essay is expected to be approximately 3-5 pages long (not considering the title page).

? Your writing should argue your point regarding the questions of intercultural differences in writing.

? Consider your actual argument/position towards the topic of the essay carefully before writing and support your discussion with the information from the four articles. The best way to approach this assignment is to plan. The notes you took before for and/or in connection with each of the four articles should prove helpful when planning the content of your essay.

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Possible Examples of Arguments and Counter-Arguments about Intercultural Communication

1. Argument: Peculiarities of a person’s first language and his/her home culture influence that person’s style of using and responding to compliments, requests, suggestions, and to other speech acts in another language and culture.

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A related counter-argument: A person’s style of using and responding to compliments, requests, suggestions, and other speech acts depends only on that person’s individual manners of communication, his/her family upbringing, social position, and/or education.

2. Argument: Whether a person mentions or doesn’t mention his/her personal opinions and evaluations in his/her academic communication, depends first of all on the traditions popular in his/her home culture.

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A related counter-argument: A person decides either to include or not to include his/her personal opinions and evaluations in his/her academic communication based on his/her previous experience, education, and/or the context of a particular situation.

3. Argument: People from many western countries tend to provide more direct and explicit suggestions, assessments, and evaluations than people from most of eastern countries, which can be mostly explained by some typical features of those cultures.

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A related counter-argument: People can be more or less direct in their statements, suggestions, requests, etc., depending on their purposes in each particular situation as well as their individual communicative habits and perceptions.

4. Argument: In many cases, people from Asian countries and from Latin America prefer to use more gestures, body language, and other means of non-verbal communication, compared to people from Europe and from Northern America; this trend is connected with different expectations regarding speaker-listener relationships in different parts of the world.

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A related counter-argument: Independently of their origin, first language, and/or home culture, people from different parts of the world can use non-verbal means of communication more or less often, depending on their personal preferences, habits, perceptions, and the context of a particular communicative situation.

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Learning Objectives

? Develop the skill to effectively take notes based on different sources

? Think and write critically

? Paraphrase, summarize, and annotate another’s text effectively

? Identify the central idea, main points, and subpoints of the original text

? Express your own argument and ideas in a clear, logical, and convincing way

? Use outside sources for making your argument sound well-proved and convincing

? Revise for appropriate content, organization, language use, and mechanics

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Grading Criteria

? The paper has a clear, cohesive, and convincing argument

? The paper is organized and develops the topic/argument logically and

thoughtfully

? A counter-argument persuades the reader that other points of views are

considered

? A thesis is supported by several relevant sections/paragraphs

? There is originality of thinking, breadth of knowledge, and depth of reasoning

? The paper supports reasons with evidence, quotes, and analysis

? Sentence structure and grammar errors do not interfere with the clarity of the

writing

? Formatting follows MLA conventions