This important book deals with the fascinating and often misunderstood field of Contrastive Rhetoric, the study of culturally based differences in written discourse. Despite two-and-a-half decades of exploratory research, theory-building in this field is just beginning. This book addresses the central, almost universally neglected issue of textuality as it relates to Contrastive Rhetoric. It offers an informed creative working theory of text with direct application for research in crosslanguage written discourse and suggests implications for the teaching of ESL writing.