ABSTRACT
Issues of culture in teaching ESL, particularly academic writing, became a topic of debate in the 1990s, triggered by a series of articles highlighting cultural differences between ESL students’ background and the expectations of the target English discourse community (e.g., Atkinson, 1997; Atkinson & Ramanathan, 1995; Carson, 1992; Carson & Nelson, 1994, 1996; Fox, 1994; Nelson & Carson, 1998; Ramanathan & Atkinson, 1999; Ramanathan & Kaplan, 1996). A common conception underlying these articles is that Western academic traditions emphasize such values as individualism, autonomy, creativity, voice, and critical thinking, whereas the cultural background of ESL students, particularly those from East Asia, reflects quite opposite characteristics, such as collectivism, memorization, and respect for authority. This view, however, met with criticisms from various scholars: It was criticized for manifesting a deterministic understanding of culture and a particular student population and for promoting “cultural essentialism” or the idea that certain objectively essential and stable properties exist in a culture (e.g., Kubota, 1999; Raimes & Zamel,1997; Spack, 1997; Zamel, 1997).
