BOOK REVIEWS 95Contrastive Rhetoric in Shona and English Argumentative Essays, ByJuliet Thondhlana, Harare, University of Zimbabwe Publications, 2000,182 pp. ISBN: 0-908307- 86-1.Kaplan's (1966) work suggested that Anglo-European expository essaysfollow a linear development. In contrast, paragraph development inSemitic languages is based on a series of parallel coordinate clauses.Essays written in Oriental languages use an indirect approach andcome to the point only at the end. In Romance languages and in Russian,essays are permitted a degree of digressiveness and extraneous materialthat would seem excessive to a writer of English.1From the above quotation, it can be deduced that language andwriting are expressions of, and are themselves influenced by the particularculture of a given society. Given this fact, there is bound to be mothertongue interference when non-native speakers learn to write in a foreignlanguage such as English. This is the main theme of Thondlana's book,Contrastive Rhetoric in Shona and English Argumentative Essays. Contrastiverhetoric (CR) is used in the book 'as a way of studying language that looksat textual products of language learners, both in the first or sourcelanguage, as well as in the second or target language' (p. xii). This is inaddition to the other sense of rhetoric as an art of persuasivecommunication.Chapter 1 of the book lays the foundation of the study by providing aconcise socio-linguistic background of the language situation in Zimbabwe.It discusses issues of bilingualism and the absence of a language policy inZimbabwe, among others, pointing out the urgent need for the country todevelop a coherent and meaningful language policy in order to redressthe problems inherited from the colonial era. In Chapter 2, Thondhlanatraces the origin and development of CR, taking the reader back to 1966when American applied linguist Robert Kaplan initiated the contrastiverhetoric model to explain pedagogical problems encountered in the writingof English as a second language (ESL) or English as a foreign language(EFL), while Chapter 3 explains the research methods used in collectingdata for the book. In their turn, Chapters 5 and 6 focus on the book'sanalytical approaches, which are described as "argument structureanalysis and the persuasive appeals analysis". Chapter 7 sums up thefindings of the study.Using data collected from O-level argumentative compositions, theauthor clearly demonstrates that Shona-speaking students of English as asecond language (ESL) transfer rhetorical patterns that are appropriate1 Connor, U., Contrastioe Rhetoric: Cross-Cultural Aspects of Second-Language Writing (New-York, Cambridge University Press, 1996), 15.96 BOOK REVIEWSin Shona but which are considered inappropriate in English. The authorattributes the transfer of rhetorical patterns from Shona to English to theinfluence of Shona culture and argues that the problem of rhetoricaltransfer cuts across all education levels in Zimbabwe. To demonstratethis point, she quotes from the O-level English Language examiners'report for the 1990 Examination, which documents awkward and ridiculousexpressions used by students which arose out of literal translations ofvarious expressions from Shona to English. Examples include: "the rainwas raining hard" an English rendition of Shona's Mvura yainaya chaizvo;"he rang a phone' from Akaridza runhare, and "the money was eaten bythe headmaster" from Mari yakadyiwa nahedhimasita (p. xiii). Althoughthe levels of rhetorical transfer differ from level to level, college anduniversity students, like school pupils, are also susceptible to problemsof rhetorical transfer. On the basis of this finding and from her own wideexperience as a teacher of both Shona and English, Tondhlana hasproduced a book, which is not only lucid and insightful but which alsomakes a very welcome and important contribution to the field of AppliedLinguistics.Contrastive Rhetoric in Shona and English Argumentative Essays is awell-written, well-packaged and professionally-edited book, which is highlyrecommended to English teachers at all levels, student teachers, lecturers,language and education policy makers, and all those involved with rhetoricas persuasive communication.JAIROS KANGIRA University of ZimbabweStriking Back: The Labour Movement and the Post-Colonial State inZimbabwe, 1980-2000, By Brian Raftopoulos and Lloyd Sachikonye (eds.),Harare, Weaver press, 2001, 316pp, ISBN 0-7974-2286-2.Although labour and labour movements have long played an importantrole in the political and economic history of Zimbabwe, as demonstratedby the Shamva Mine Strike of 1928, the ICU, the 1945 and 1948 strikes andthe involvement of labour activists in the birth and development ofZimbabwe's nationalist struggle against colonialism, they have not alwaysbeen accorded the importance they deserve in Zimbabweanhistoriography and have, especially in the post-independence retelling ofthe country's accounts of the struggle for independence, been relegatedto the margins of history. In their 1997 publication, Keep on Knocking: AHistory of the Labour Movement in Zimbabwe, 1900-97, Brian Raftopoulosand Ian Phimister demonstrated that, not only does the labour movementhave a rich history of organisation, mobilisation, and agitation for better