修辞学讲义-2

Chapter Two Communicative (Passive) Rhetoric

Three levels of rhetorical operation

Rhetoric involves choice of words, sentence patterns, figures of speech, organization of paragraphs and composition. This process can be broken into three basic levels: Level One: words and phrases

Level Two: sentence variety

Level Three: organizing paragraphs into a complete text

Choice of Words

●Using suitable words

Characteristic of English vocabulary: include over a half-million words, and thousands of new ones are added every year.

Principles of choosing words: To communicate our ideas precisely and effectively, we should choose the right words that are exact, fresh, vivid, and appropriate.

◆Choose the most appropriate words:

✧Mother Teresa is notorious for her work with the poor and sick in India.

✧Because he did not know either party, the arbitrator was able to take an uninterested

view of the dispute.

✧The businessperson has upheld a reputation for deception and deceit.

◆Be aware of the audience or readers and suit to the occasion:

✧Jack's house was destroyed by fire. Jim went to comfort him and asked him to

contact the insurance company. "Cheer up, my friend," he said, "your insurance

claim will be proceeding like a house on a fire, I'm sure."

●Denotation and connotation

Definitions

◆Denotation is the specific, direct, and literal meaning of a word, as described in a

dictionary definition. It is also called denotative meaning or explicit meaning.

✧ A man was killed and his son was seriously injured in an automobile accident. The

boy was rushed to a hospital. The surgeon took one look at him and said, "This is

my son! I can't operate on him!"

◆Connotation is the associative or suggestive meaning of a word. It often implies attitudes,

emotions, etc. of the speaker or writer, and is also called implicit meaning.

✧"Proverb" would be the appropriate word to use in reference to saying from the

Bible.

✧"Saw" is often used in reference to the wisdom handed down to us anonymously.

✧"Epigram" is often used in reference to a witty statement.

Words may have positive and negative connotations

✧She has a slender figure.

✧She looked thin after her illness.

✧The child has skinny, freckled legs with prominent knees.

✧The old horse was bony.

Words have historical and social connotations

✧It may yet compound the misery of Iraq in the same way Watergate followed

Vietnam.