Traditional contrastive rhetoric research is often restricted to the textual level of analysis. By providing both a textual and contextual view of genre across languages and cultures, this book presents a framework for contrastive rhetoric research which moves beyond the text into the context of production and interpretation of the text. The book examines the textual patterning of Australian and Chinese commentaries and interpersonal and intertextual features of the texts, as well as considers possible contextual factors which might contribute to the formation of the newspaper commentaries in the two different languages and cultures. This analysis contributes towards answering the questions: How do writers in different languages and cultures position themselves in relation to the topics that they write about? How do they manipulate the topic and address their readers by the use of various linguistic strategies and devices? How do the roles of the press and opinion discourses mediate and influence constructions of the Chinese and English commentaries? How do discourses of terrorism in these two settings relate to textual and intertextual practices? The book is addressed to researchers in contrastive rhetoric and discourse research. It is also directed towards scholars in intercultural communication and translation.