Reviews literature on cross-cultural reading, interlanguage, and story grammar against the theory of contrastive rhetoric, and considers implications for teaching reading to advanced second language students. The conclusion is that comparative rhetoric demands levels of cultural sensitivity in teachers that transcend any one theory or approach.…

The applied linguist, who most commonly uses interlanguage analysis for nonstandard language forms, and the language teacher, who relies heavily on error analysis, each need to learn the usefulness and viability of the other method in his own professional context. Examples focus on the written preterit form in Spanish. (44 references) (Author/MSE)