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Written Communication
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Cross-Cultural Analysis of Student Writing

Beyond Discourses of Difference

Tiane Donahue

University of Maine Farmington

Text analysis traditions in France and the United States include discourse analysis, critical linguistics, French functional linguistics, Bakhtinian dialogics, and "generous reading." These frames have not been used, however, in cross-cultural analysis of university student writing. The author presents a study of 250 student texts from French and U.S. introductory university courses, using a methodology for cross-cultural analysis that draws on other French and U.S. methodologies, particularly those using the dialogic utterance as a unit of analysis, but extended by the tools of reprise-modification and textual movement. The results provide a complex picture of university students' writing as a site of social-textual dynamics, resisting more traditional contrastive approaches while reintroducing a focus on the text. The interpretive analysis brought out more commonality than difference; the author hypothesizes that students entering the university share a discourse of learning and negotiation across cultural contexts. The methodology supports cross-cultural analysis beyond "discourses of difference."

Key Words: reprise-modification • dialogics • textual movement • discourse analysis • university student writing • cultural comparison

Written Communication, Vol. 25, No. 3, 319-352 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0741088308319515
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