Kaplan's landmark article (1966) was concerned with the transfer of first language cultural conventions to second language performance. It dealt with the rhetorical organization of ideas in writing, which was assumed, without much question, to be culturally determined. The emphasis of the work was on rhetorical styles; little attention in that early work was paid to reasons for culture-specific writing styles.

In a later work, Kaplan took up the issue of culture in the context of the difference between writing and speaking. As he observed, “written language is different from spoken language” (1987,12). Spoken language is primarily an innate, biologically determined ability; writing, on the other hand, according to Kaplan, is a “post-biological” step and obviously is not universal to all people. It is, he claimed, the invention of literacy that allows the search for truth in terms of cultural universals and particulars.

Although Kaplan's traditional approach to rhetoric did not focus on reasons for cultural differences in writing, more recent scholarship has shed new light on the role of culture and its inculcation through schooling. The 1980s witnessed a proliferation of studies examining the processes whereby one becomes literate in one's native language and culture. Anthropologists, psychologists, and researchers in education are among those who have particularly investigated the processes of learning literacy and the effects of literacy on learners' thinking as well as social behavior.