Abstract

Intercultural rhetoric (IR) is “the study of written discourse between and among individuals with different cultural backgrounds” (Connor, 2011, p.1). IR examines the influences of first language, culture, and education on the production of texts with the aim of advancing intercultural communication research as well as informing writers, editors, translators, and language and composition instructors and learners, among other users and producers of text. This chapter outlines the history of IR from its contrastive rhetoric (CR) beginnings, briefly discusses IR’s conceptualization of culture, and describes current IR research methods. The grant proposal is used to illustrate how IR research methodology is particularly useful for the study of specific genres across cultures. Finally, special attention is paid to IR research as it applies to English for academic purposes (EAP) practice (in both English as a second language (ESL) and English as a foreign language (EFL) contexts). The chapter closes with a consideration of future directions for IR.