Study of the structure between eight新

Study of the structure between Chinese eight-legged essay and British academicessay---from the angle of test-cored civil service system AbstractThis study focuses on the structure of both Chinese eight-legged essay and British essay, in an attempt to figure out the correlation between these two seemingly unrelated domains, in the context of fundamental social system. As regards to the origin of eight-legged essay dating back to hundreds of years, here stated are explorations of the eight-legged essay in Ming dynasty (1368-1644) and British essay in (1585-1870), emphasizing on the point of turbulent revolution of British civil service. This paper would insert a new insight into eight-legged essay by breaking off the shackles of being rigid and constraint of intellectual thoughts thus provides us a mode of logically-renowned essay for English writing.Key words:structure, eight-legged essay, British argumentative writing, test-cored civil service system1. IntroductionWhat is pleasant is that a number of authors (Cook 1989; McCarthy 1991; Hatch 1992) have made studies in proving that this kind of discourse analysis can exert intriguing insights in the field of writing. And it has been gradually acknowledged that fleeting thoughts and emotional freely flowing style alone, cannot contribute to a good article. Structure is to article what brick is to an edifice. Structure, which seems simple and easy to understand and grasp, is normally known as a rigid form of writing and considered deviated from the spirit of innovation. However, this case does not apply to the situation here. In the West, composition writing instruction often tends to approach a topic from a balanced perspective, by encouraging students to give appropriate information to support the topic from two or more points of view, to lend these views credibility and to come to a ‘balanced‟ conclusion or judgment. It is established that Western students are usually instructed that readers need to be convinced of the validity of the writer‟s position and that the onus of persuading.A large quantity of research paper concerning the consolidation and strengthen of civil service reform in Ming dynasty and British civil service evolution and formation and have been collected and analyzed to support the topic of this essay. Tracing back to the fainted old days of history in Ming dynasty and Britain after its industrial revolution, we have grasped a better understanding of the background of their civil service reforms and the way they select appropriate and talented persons for certain posts to serve for the people and the government. Under this system, the only-permitted writing types---eight-legged essay sways its influence at its most incisive. In view of this fact, this paper intends to explore the structure of both essays and inquire into their relations between each other.Therefore, there are several aspects of this essay to be addressed. The first one relates to the basic information about the systems, providing an overview of the basements of both the eight-legged essay and British academic writing. The second one involves a general explanation and a clarity expounding of the structure of both eight-legged essay and British academic writing. While the third problem deals with the generalsimilarities and differences of these two writing styles for the sake of bringing out the potential values to improve English writing.2. Research backgroundExcessive advice and suggestions about how to write good English academic articles are given and an increasing number of people who are under pressure to publish research papers, but most of them lack efficient information and clear understandings of how to structure the discourse.3. Research questionsA number of researches have been carried out to analyze the characteristics and the historical value of Chinese eight-legged essay and British academic essay, which provides a reference to our further study on how they react to each other. Consequently, two questions are raised during the process of conducting this paper. The first one falls into the discussion of the basic features and structures of the Chinese eight-legged essay and the British academic essay as well as their corresponding basements. And the ensuing problem goes to the comparison of them and finds out whether they share something in common in terms of their text organizational pattern.4. Research methodologyOn the basis of social system of selecting officials for serving the people, a lot of historical materials have been collected and analyzed. With dialectical and historical materialism analysis adopted, these facts are only meant for presenting an authentic situation at that time. Moreover, a comparative method is mainly employed to illustrate the main topic of this essay, that is, the structure of eight-legged essay and British essay in writing.5. Results and Discussions5.1 The cornerstones of both the eight-legged essay and British academic essay Before probing into the topic of this paper, it‟s beneficial to cast lights on where we are standing and where we are going. Setting in Ming dynasty and almost contemporary Britain, what we have got here are the imperial examination system and British civil service system, both serving as important agencies to promoting talents for countries. Indeed, since immemorial time, selecting personnel has always been the significant problem that every kind of society and social stratum pay attention to.5.1.1 Imperial examination systemThe imperial examination system serves as an institution to select the best potential candidates to shoulder the posts of government administrative affairs in ancient China. The tests were mainly in the form of eight-legged essay as well as to other types of examinations. Undisputedly, the reason why the eight-legged essay had survived for such a long time can be attributed to its solid social and systematic foundation---the imperial examination system. This constantly mature and regularized system of selecting talents for the country has injected great vitality in stabilizing eight-legged essay as the only required writing style in examinations.Reviewing from some historical literatures, it‟s not hard to unearth the close relation between the imperial examination system and the Civil Service in Britain. It has been suggested that the Chinese Imperial examination system had exerted an importantimpact on the Northcote-Trevelyan Report and hence on the reform of the Civil Service in British India and later in the United Kingdom. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, admission to the British civil service administration depended on success in an examination in classical studies."The examination systems employed in most countries are copied from the British system. And the origin of the Britain's examination system actually came from China," stated Dr. Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925), in his Five-Power Constitution. Meanwhile, early in 1621, a book titled "Anatomy of Melancholy" by Robert Burton created panic among the British aristocracy by challenging the privilege enjoyed by the aristocracy, and suggesting the introduction of China's imperial examination system. Two centuries later, in 1855, the civil official examination system was officially established in Britain.5.1.2 Establishment of British civil service systemRenowned as the originator of western British civil service system of election(Guyan, 1996),British civil service system ,also known as Her Majesty's Civil Service is the permanent bureaucracy or secretariat of Crown employees that supports Her Majesty's Government of the United Kingdom, which is composed of a cabinet of ministers chosen by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, as well as two of the three devolved administrations: the Scottish Government and the Welsh Government, but not the Northern Ireland Executive. It sets an example for the reform of system of election of cadres in other countries.In the 18th century, before this storm of reform has come, the system of election was incomplete, staffs were appointed by purchase or patronage. By the 19th century, it became increasingly clear that new forms of selection should be employed to improve working efficiency and facilitate social equality.I n 1806, the Honourable East India Company established a college, the East India Company College, near London. The purpose of this college was to train administrators; it was established on recommendation of officials in China who had seen the imperial examination system. The civil service, based on examination similar to the Chinese system, was advocated by a number of Englishmen over the next several decades. (Bodde, 2005)A permanent, unified and politically neutral civil service, in which appointments were made on merit, was introduced on the recommendations of the Northcote-Trevelyan Report of 1854, which also recommended a clear division between staff responsible for routine ("mechanical") work, and those engaged in policy formulation and implementation in an "administrative" class. The report was well-timed because bureaucratic chaos in the Crimean War promptly caused a clamor for the change. A Civil Service Commission was accordingly set up in 1855 to oversee open recruitment and end patronage, and most of the other Northcote-Trevelyan recommendations were implemented over some years. The Northcote-Trevelyan model remained essentially stable for a hundred years. This was a tribute to its success in removing corruption, delivering public services (even under the stress of two world wars), and responding effectively to political change.5.2 The Chinese eight-legged essayThe Chinese eight-legged essay, known as Ba Gu Wen in Chinese, is probably the most widely discussed traditional Chinese rhetoric. Starting from the ancient Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), the Ba Gu Wen (eight-legged essay) was the required form of essay writing in the imperial civil service examination. It is notorious for its rule-like format requirement, namely eight parts in the essay. The eight parts (with their individual meanings in parentheses) and their functions are as follows (Elman, 2000, p. 394; Kirkpatrick, 1997, p. 232-233):1. Po Ti (breaking/opening the topic): This should reveal the candidate‟s knowledge of the source of the essay title and should be written in only two sentences;2. Cheng Ti (receiving the topic): This comprises four or five sentences and includes the reason why the sage (Confucius) made the statement quoted in the essay title;3. Qi Jiang (beginning discussion): This is the real beginning of the essay. Here the candidates can use their own words, rather than discuss and quote the sage;4. Qi Gu (initial leg): This section consists of two paragraphs, one parallel to the other in rhetorical structure. These paragraphs build up the philosophical content of the essay without exhausting it;5. Xu Gu (transition leg): This is the prelude to the main theme of the essay where the first two lines are parallel to the second two lines, and t hese are the “minor legs”;6. Zhong Gu (middle leg): This is the main part of the essay, namely the central leg, and contains the main points the candidates want to raise. Parallel structure is used.7. Hou Gu (latter leg): This develops the ideas expressed in the Zhong Gu or main part and represents the latter leg;8. Da Jie (conclusion): Here the candidate brings the composition to a close.This strictly formulated writing format was taught and practiced in China for several hundred years until the end of the Qing dynasty (1644–1911) and some researchers (e.g., Cai, 1993; Connor, 1996) believe that due to its long-lasting existence in Chinese history and enormous social-cultural impact, the Ba Gu Wen rhetoric pattern still influences contemporary Chinese writing and native-Chinese speakers‟ English writing in many ways. Some of the influences include the following:•The Ba Gu Wen rhetoric pattern results in indirectness in Chinese writing. •Ba Gu Wen contributes to Chinese preference for paired phrases and structures in Chinese writing.•Ba Gu Wen is responsible for Chinese preference for analogy and allusion to history.5.2.1 Structure of Chinese eight-legged essayOne defining and striking characteristic applied in the eight-legged essay goes to its strict integration and its clarity, which is bestowed with an influential Chinese rhetoric strategy for expository and persuasive writing---the four-part organizational pattern Qi-Cheng-Zhuan-He, which greatly influenced the formation of Ba Gu Wen (eight-legged essay). The four-part Qi-Cheng-Zhuan-He literally means beginning-elaboration-transition-conclusion. Qi is the opening section with the introduction of theme; Cheng elaborates on the main point with supporting materials; Zhuan is the turning point to deviate momentarily from the discussion; and He is the conclusion part. Next is a household Chinese poem by the famous poet Li Bai(701-762) which is taken as the typical example of the Qi-Cheng-Zhuan-He structure in the Dictionary of Chinese Rhetoric. Kirkpatrick (1997, p. 229) translated the Chinese poem literally line-by-line into English as follows:At the front of my bed moonlight shines, (qi)I think there is frost on the ground, (cheng)Raising my head, I look at the moon, (zhuan)Lowering my head, I think of home. (he)What makes the writing sound indirect to some English speakers is the momentary turn in the Zhuan (or transition) section. English compositions written by Chinese EFL/ESL students were often found to show the influence of this four-part organization pattern.5.2.2 Appraisals on the eight-legged essayAs the saying goes that, every coin has two sides, unexceptional for the eight-legged essay. Initially, this type of writing has played an indelible role in the consolidation of the feudal dynasties. While, accompanied with the positive influence are a series of restrain and crisis imposed on the people and the national life. People were locked into a serfdom of ideas and politics that shackled their national life and clamped their creative thinking. Therefore, this stereotyped writing is bombarded with strong criticism and dissatisfaction, featured with stylized format and strict restriction on word number. In some books, some writers have condemned the eight-legged essay as a cause of the failure of China in modern times.However, some introspection has been cast upon the value of the eight-legged essay. On top of that, the well organized and balanced article format contributes a lot in logical thinking. For this reason, it‟s easier for the students to understand and the teacher to teach. More importantly, this kind of stereotyped writing facilitates in knowledge diffusion and the quality of people.5.3 British academic essayAcademic writing is an important aspect of professional development for students and lecturers. It is one way in which they demonstrate their learning, but it can be a difficult skill to master. This article aims to enable students and professionals to develop their academic writing style using a coherent and effective framework. Clear-cut and carefully-laid out structure can aid us a lot in conveying the ideas and thoughts. Undoubtedly, it acquires a clear understanding of the composing parts of academic essay in the first place. It‟s known that there are eight indispensable parts in English academic writing and they are collectively title, abstract, key words, introduction, results, method, discussion, conclusion and references, also can be called “eight-part essay”.In the book titled”Academic Writing and Publishing”, James Hartley (2008), the author, endeavored himself in the explanation of all these eight parts in details. Followings are what he have been extracted to support this paper.In a general sense, the title serves as a bait to arouse the reader‟s interest. The abstract helps to draw out an outline about the content. The key words, also named as …descriptors‟, along with the title and the abstract, facilitate computer-based search and retrieval. A good title should possess the quality of being concise and accurateand relevant, also attractive.Abstracts have to summarize what has been done, sometimes in as few as 150 words. It is easier to write an abstract if you remember that all abstracts have a basic structure. Indeed, the phrase …structured abstracts‟ says it all. This kind of abstract, common in medical research journals and now appearing in many social science articles, can be adapted for most normal purposes. Structured abstracts are typically written using five sub-headings –…back-ground‟, …aim‟, …method‟, …results‟ and …conclusions‟.Key words, as mentioned above, should allow readers to judge whether or not an article contains material relevant to their interests; provide readers with suitable terms to use in web-based searches to locate other materials on the same or similar topics; help indexers/editors group together related materials in, say, the end-of-year issues of a particular journal or a set of conference proceedings; allow editors/researchers to document changes in a subject discipline (over time); link the specific issues of concern to issues at a higher level of abstraction. The introduction section, as stated by James Hartley (2008), can be constructed by the following 3 typical structure: •The one listed above –where the authors establish their niche by indicating limitations or omissions in the previous research.•One where two (or more) different areas of research are reviewed – and the authors establish their niche by bringing them together.•One where some previous research has provided support for a particular finding or theory, and some has not – and the authors establish their niche by seeking to resolve and explain this.Most method sections are usually subdivided (with subheadings) into three sections, as follows: participants, measures, and procedure. While, typically, in results sections, to present the main data that support (or reject) the hypotheses in the form of tables and graphs is very critical. Discussion parts describe typical points in academic research papers. Followed are the primary points.•Restate the findings and accomplishments.•Evaluate how the results fit in with the previous findings –do they contradict, qualify, agree or go beyond them?•Figure out the potential limitations to the study.•Offer an interpretation/explanation of these results.•State the implications and recommend further research.References, without the need of explaining it explicitly, reveal itself to show respect for the wisdom of other people.5.3.1 Structural analysis of the British academic essayEach part of an essay owns its distinct features and organizational patterns. Indeed, working out the plots of an essay and creating it is no easy task and often it leads to tricky problems. Based on quite a number of surveys and experiments, Hoey (2001), argues that the Problem-Solution pattern is a basic minimum discourse pattern and “arguably the most common pattern of all”,accounting for the majority of English texts.Hence, an academic essay conducted under the guideline of the problem-solving pattern is the primary and fundamental pattern that helps to build an essay.Theproblem-solution pattern, in accordance with the ideas of Hoey (1983), is composed of 4 elementary parts: situation, problem, response, and evaluation, in which,roughly speaking, situation refers to the sentence(s) that can provide situation to the discourse, sometimes with (often implied) connectors when, while, and answers the question like what happened or what is the situation. The problem is not a real world problem, but rather that aspect of the situation requiring a response. Response can work in two directions: one is cause-consequence or stimulus-response; the other is response-evaluation. And evaluation goes to the conclusion, sometimes with suggestions and advice. According to Hoey (2001), textual patterns analyses were made to describe the way clauses or groups of clauses relate to each other in the discourse. Therefore, the various types (Goal achievement, Opportunity-Taking, Desire Arousal-fulfillment or Gap in Knowledge-Filling) can all be summarized in one abstract pattern represented as SPRE. Where S stands for the situation, P for the problem, goal, need of knowledge, etc (depending on the case), R for the response, the way of achieving a goal, etc. and, finally, E represents a positive evaluation (the pattern ends) or a negative evaluation (the pattern is recycled).5.3.2 Evaluation of British academic essayWriting reflects not only the information that the writer is trying to convey, but also the inner psychological activity and the thinking mode of construction.A large number of historical records and literatures send us a message that Britain, as the first country in the world who has established the civilian system in 1870, is now being world-recognized and popular-accepted as a basic and fundamental institution to provide human force to work for the country and the people. Moreover, it serves as a platform for citizens to participate in national politics and make endeavors to the country, as well as an indicator showing the social fairness and administrative ability. Apart from this, the ability to compose a logical and lucid academic essay embodies the manifolds learning abilities of students, such as collecting relevant literature and documents, assessing the value of literatures, organizing the paper arrangement, and wording of the appropriate dictions.The major problems that lie in the failure of writing a thesis can be attributed to the lack of overall awareness of the structure and thought pattern, thus making the course of writing academic essay miserable. However, the thinking mode and the unambiguous structural pattern lie behind the British academic essay make the writing with less confusion and uncertainty.5.4 Correlations between Chinese eight-legged essay and British academic essay After all these investigations and surveys concerning the past history and current problem, it‟s not hard to realize the two essays share some common points, structurally and functionally. As a matter of fact, these bounded characteristics and features enable us to connect them together and dig out the essence and potential value to ponder over the problem about how to create a well-structured essay.5.4.1 Resemblance in structureEvidently, macroscopically speaking, these two essays both posses a lucid and intelligible structure, which aids people in grasping the main ideas and clarifying the supporting points. Propped up by the well-designed framework, it would be mucheasier to develop the plots of essays and state opinions than a logically chaotic thought pattern. Both the eight-legged essay and British academic essay adhere to a set of thinking mode---theme (a problem or a topic)--argumentation (being correspondent with topic)--conclusion (restating the topic), thus providing us a great opportunity to ponder over the structure of both essays and make progress in organizing essays.5.4.2 Strong vitality in constructing thesisThe truth that both the Chinese eight-legged essay and British academic essay have survived is beyond the shadow of a doubt, though the Chinese eight-legged essay has been subjected to ruthless criticism and accusations. The fact is this phenomenon still persists in the present. By contrast, the British academic essay, widely adopted to write scientific and academic essays, has been highly praised. Diverging fate as it is, their respective structures of conforming essays have won a broad recognition.6. Conclusion and implicationTo sum up, a vision of similarity and resemblance between Chinese eight-legged essay and British academic essay has been presented, along with their application in today‟s essay-composing. Unlike previous studies, this paper demonstrates a new perspective to treat traditional culture. It would be instructive to break the bondage of ossified thinking and be free from the frames of minds and prejudices by converting to a more rational and encompassing attitude. More often than not, in the light of the virtues of its being manageable and logical, we can learn by analogy to improve the writing of English academic papers. Sustained by such a succinct and simple structure, you don‟t have to worry about being deviated from the topic; all you have to do is to add details and elaborate.Brief as it is, the previous analysis seems to suggest that, on the one hand, the two discourse patterns, qi-cheng-zhuan-he in Chinese and the Problem-Solution in English, share much in terms of how ideas are raised and supported. The basic minimum discourse pattern, the basic principles of the Problem-Solution, as claimed by Hoey (1983), could possibly be applied to the interpretation of both English and Chinese narrative and expository texts.However, there are some limitations in this study. First, further research of other types of patterns is not available in this paper. Second, some other factors have not been taken. Therefore, some further exploration concerning the social issues and educational system should be addressed.Bibliography[1] Xian Chen, CR Theory and Rhetorical Differences between Chinese and EnglishWriting. Celea Journal, 2008 (6): 44-46.[2]Wain-Chin Chen,Some Literature Review on the Comparison of the ChineseQi-Cheng-Zhuan-He Writing Model and the Western Problem-Solution Schema.WHAMPOA-An Interdisciplinary Journal, 2007(52): 137-148.[3]Hoey, M. On the Surface of Discourse.London: George Allen & Unwin, 1983.[4] Hoey, M. Textual Interaction: An Introduction to Written Discourse Analysis.London: Routledge, 2001.[5]Hartley, J. Academic Writing and Publishing. London: Routledge, 2008.[6] Xinghua Liu, Towards an Ecological View of Contrastive Rhetoric Research between Englishand Chinese. The Internet Journal of Language, Culture and Society, 2012(34): 33-42. [7] Xinghua Liu, More than Ba Gu Wen (Eight-Legged Essay) and Confucianism: a new ResearchAgenda for English-Chinese Writing Studies.Retrieved from /tesolslwis/print/2011-11-30/1.html on3 July, 2012.[8]Yuchen Yang & Zhong Yang, Problem-Solution in English vs. Qi-cheng-zhuan-hein Chinese: Are They Compatible Discourse Patterns?. Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics, 2010(5): 65-75.[9] 古燕.《西方政治的稳定器—文官制度》[M]. 辽宁：辽宁大学出版社, 1996.[10]黄强.起承转合结构说的源流[J]. 《伊犁师范学院学报》, 2006(1): 68-75.[11]金春岚.“起承转合”与西方语篇模式理论[J]. 《当代修辞学》, 2013(2): 68-74.[12]刘海峰.科举制对西方考试制度影响新探[J]. 《中国社会科学》,2001(5):189-202.[13]刘诗伟.八股文写作理念对作文教学的启示[J]. 《衡阳师范学院学报》,2001(4):85-87.[14]李永强,马慧玥. 论中国科举制度对西方文官制度的影响[J]. 《中国人民大学学报》,2008(1): 112-117.[15]李素贞.试论科举制对文官考试制度的影响及反思[J]. 《传承》,2009(3):100-101.[16]谢文郁. 八股文与学术论文[J]. 《中国研究生》,2009(6): 38-40.。