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The influence of the learner's mother tongue on the use of a second language has long been of interest within applied linguistics. Whilst most studies have focused on the sentence level, contrastive rhetoric has broadened this area of investigation to the levels of discourse and text. This study explores and applies the approach to written English and Shona of Shona native speakers in Zimbabwe. It is both theoretical and practical, highlighting the importance of multi-dimensional andnon-evaluative analytical frameworks, and providing information for second language teachers and learners.