Contrastive Rhetoric: Shortening the gap between cultures

What is Contrastive Rhetoric?
It is a template for educators to use to help non native speaking people to be able to write in English. In order to explain the concept fully, I will use a few examples. Language is not the only thing that makes cultures different. The communication process is different between different cultures as well. Talking about violence in the United States is something that is done every day. It is plastered across the television news programs and newspapers. Violence in the movies and video games is not considered out of place. If we were to play one of our "action movies" in a theater in France, the audience would come out of the theater horrified. If we were to ask one of the audience members to write a paper on how violence can be useful, they might not have any idea what you were talking about. Violence, and the glorification thereof, is simply not part of their culture. Some writing styles from other cultures do not translate very well into English, either. Subjects across borders are not always the same, nor are they viewed in the same way in each culture. The point of Contrastive Rhetoric is to provide a way for all students to be able to write "from the same book".

The Alexie "I Hate Tonto" reading was a good example of Contrastive Rhetoric because it was an explanation of how the Native American culture has been completely misunderstood and misrepresented by another culture. Alexie explained, "recently, I watched the film for the first time in many years and cringed in shame and embarrassment with every stereotypical scene". Everyone wants to see a piece of themselves in the movies, but his entire childhood was spent idolizing a stereotypical character that was completely fictional. Nothing except maybe skin and hair color was like the actual Native American culture in these movies. They had settled for "close enough" (Alexie). The reasons behind the actual Native American traditions were not explained correctly because they did not translate across cultures and no one corrected this, choosing instead to accept and even idolize the character that was nothing like real life. I think that sometimes it is easier to accept the wrong message rather than try to fix the stereotype. Why else would stereotypes exist for so long and be so hard to change?