英语修辞学教案

English Rhetoric 英语修辞学

I. Connotation of Rhetoric：rhetoric的含义

1. Rhetoric may be used as an ordinary（普通用词）word and a technical term（专业术语）.

1) As an ordinary word, rhetoric in a derogatory sense means “skilful argumentation”（巧辩）and “empty or exaggerated eloquence”（虚夸的话）.

e.g. the exaggerated rhetoric of presidential campaigns（总统竞选期间唱

的高调）；the empty rhetoric of the politicians（政客们的花言巧语）;

flowery rhetoric（华丽的辞藻）

Rhetoric also means (1) “language designed to have a persuasive or impressive effect on its audience”（言语，辞令）, e.g. employ stirring rhetoric; soothing rhetoric; glowing rhetoric (2) “a rtistic language”（艺术语言）, e.g. the rhetoric of fiction（小说的艺术语言）; the rhetoric of film(电影语言); body rhetoric(肢体语言)

2) As a technical term, rhetoric has several senses. In America, the writing course or the writing textbook is entitled “rhetoric”. Apart from the above senses, rhetoric also has the following important senses:

(1) Speaking rhetoric（演讲修辞）: the art of speaking

(2) Compositional rhetoric（写作修辞）: the art of writing

(3) Stylistic rhetoric（风格修辞，文体修辞）: the style of writing

2. Rhetoric may also be subdivided into the following:

1) Lexical rhetoric（词汇修辞）:

the rhetorical law of choosing words and phrases

2) Sentence rhetoric（句子修辞）:

the rhetorical law selecting sentence patterns

3) Paragraph rhetoric（段落修辞）:

the rhetorical law of organizing paragraphs

4) textual rhetoric（语篇修辞）:

the rhetorical law of organizing texts

II. Definition of Rhetoric修辞学的定义

What is rhetoric ?

1.Origin of modern rhetoric: 现代修辞学的起源

Rhetoric originated in “speaking”（说话）. Aristotle（亚里士多得）, in the 4th century BC, first defined rhetoric as the art of persuasion, equivalent to argumentation as people understand today. John Locke（约翰.洛克）, English philosopher of the late 17th century, described rhetoric as “the science of oratory(演说术)” or “the art of speaking with propriety, elegance and force(修辞学是说话得体、优美和有力的艺术)”. All this explains why the word “rhetoric” means “speaking”in such European languages as Greek, Latin, French, Spanish and Italian. In the book Modern Rhetoric by American linguists Brooks（布鲁克斯）and Warren（沃伦）rhetoric is defined as “the art of using language effectively（修辞学是有效地使用语言

的艺术）”.

In the New Oxford Dictionary of English rhetoric is described as “the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing, especially the exploitation of figures of speech or other compositional techniques（修辞学是有效或有说服力的演说或写作的艺术，特别是运用英语修辞格或其它写作的艺术）”.

2.Rhetoric and Figures of Speech:

Figures of speech are quite different from rhetoric, but they are important components in English rhetoric. In the New Oxford Dictionary of English, “figure of speech” is defined as “ a word or phrase used in a non-literal sense too add rhetorical force or interest to a spoken or written passage”(修辞格是用一个非字面意义的单词或短语使一段口头或笔头的文字增加修辞效果或兴趣). They refer to rhetorical devices（修辞手段）, each of which has a fixed pattern, e.g. Simile is introduced by comparative words as, like, as if, as though, etc.; Like Simile, Metaphor refers to the comparison of two essentially unlike things which have one point of resemblance;

Irony refers to the intended implication of which is the opposite of the literal sense of words; Oxymoron refers to the conjunction of two words or phrases which are incongruous or contradictory in sense so as to describe a person or thing; Pun; a play on words, sometimes on different senses of the same word and sometimes on