修辞学复习提要.doc

what is rhetoric?
Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)：the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion.
1. History of Ancient Greece (Hellas):
1.1 Tyranny (7th and 6th cent. B.C., each Greek city-state was for a time ruled by some tyrants (Corax defend the noble free men)

1.2 Democracy emerging around 600 B.C.: Solon (638 BC–558 BC), senate 元老院of 400 people, forcing each freeman to take a direct and personal interest in the affairs of the city (The Story of Mankind; court system (a jury of thirty)
1.3 Athens' Golden Age/ Classical/ Hellenic Age (500-323 B.C.)
Note: Hellenic, of Hellenes (Greek people), an Indo-European tribe who came to reside in Greece in the 11th cent. B.C. The people called themselves Hellene, after Hellen, the son of Deucalion and Pyrrha (the only two human beings who had escaped the great flood)
1) Pericles the statesman
Democracy: equality of opportunity ensured by individual merit and efficiency; equality of justice secured by jury system
By 460 B.C., led by Pericles 490-429 B.C. (p13), Athens was at its height of commercial prosperity and cultural and political dominance, and over the next 40 years many major building projects, including the Acropolis and Parthenon, were completed. Athens’s “Golden Age” saw the works of the philosophers Socrates (469-399 B.C.), Plato(427-347 B.C.), and Aristotle; the dramatists Sophocles, Aristophanes, and Euripides; the historians Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon; and the sculptors Praxiteles and Phidias.

2. History of classical rhetoric
For political and forensic purpose
2.1 Origin of rhetoric
Q: Why did western rhetoric originate in ancient Greece?
In light of politics (administration of polis-city state): democracy
2.1.1 Political政治类的: about public affairs
Q: How was a decision possibly made at the assembly? (in light of Pericles’s speech)
(through discussions and debates at the assembly)
argument, the need for rhetoric
2.1.2 Ceremonial典礼类的: to praise or censure
2.1.3 Forensic法律类的: about private affairs (to deal with the property usurped by tyrant, why in need of Corax)
Jury system: Solon, Cleisthenes, Pericles
Solon made a provision whereby a citizen with a grievance had the right to state his case before a jury of thirty of his fellow Athenians.
1. Aristotle’s theory (Reading of Aristotle’s Rhetoric)
Three categories of oratory (3 general cases corresponding to “any given case” in the definition of rhetoric): political, forensic and ceremonial (tb, p24; eRhetoric 10)
Hearer determines the speech’s end and object:
2.1 Political: assembly member to determine the future course;
2.2 Forensic: juryman to determine the past;
2.3 Ceremonial oratory of display: observer to decide on the orator’s skill in praising or censuring a man
NOTE: Political: The main matters all men deliberate and on which political speeches are made are roughly five: ways (of revenue) and means (of expenditure); war and peace; national defense; imports and exports (food supply); legislation (above all)

means of persuasion: belonging to the art of rhetoric; not the inartistic/ non-technical非技艺类的 proofs—laws, witnesses, contracts, tortures, oaths. (tb, p22; eRhetoric, p47);
belonging to the art of rhetoric: used and invented by the speaker/ spoken words
means/ modes: 3 kinds—ethos(speaker); pathos(hearer); logos(speech)

Three technical means of persuasion: ethos伦理, pathos情理, logos论理(pp23-24)
Ethos: ethical appeal道德诉求, in the character of the speaker so as to inspire trust in audience;
Pathos: emotional appeal情感诉求, in the emotional state of the hearer so as to put them in the right state of mind;
Logos: rational appeal理性诉求, in the argument itself
动之以情，晓之以理
3.1 Ethos: How can the speaker manage to appear as a credible man? (only through words, not through preexisting good character)
He must display (1)good sense (practical intelligence) 明智; (2) good morals (a virtuous character高尚品德); (3) good will善意 Men either form a false opinion through want of good sense; or they form a true opinion, but because of their moral badness they do not say what they really think; or finally, they are both sensible and upright, but not well disposed to their hearers, and may fail in consequence to recommend what they know to be the best course.
(e.g. Obama’s health care speech) eRhetoric, p53
3.2 Pathos: For we do not judge in the same way when we grieve and rejoice or when we are friendly and hostile. Thus the orator has to arouse emotions exactly because emotions have the power to influence our judgments.
3.3 Logos: We persuade the argument itself when we demonstrate or seem to demonstrate that something is the case.
Two species of argument: induction归纳 (examples) and deduction 演绎/syllogism三段论 (enthymeme修辞三段论，省略式三段论). (e.g. Obama’s speech on debt ceiling)
Induction:
Every life form we know of depends on liquid water to exist.
All life depends on liquid water to exist.

Session 6 Figure of speech修辞格 (1)
I Trope or Scheme (p88)
1. Trope（turn, change）转义/ 比喻: the way words are made to mean other than what they would normally imply, involving the deviation from its ordinary and literal meaning. Semantic and most logical figures of speech
e.g. That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind (Neil Armstrong)
Simile明喻：
Metaphor暗喻：My love is a red, red rose.
Metonymy转喻：The kettle is boiling.
Synecdoche提喻：He has many mouths to feed.
……
2. Scheme(form, shape) 结构修辞/组合变异: first in the 16th cent., figures that arranged words into schematized patterns of fore-grounded regularity of form把词组合成形式规整，前景化的模式, deviation from ordinary or expected pattern of words, syntactic or phonetic figures of speech.
（黎昌抱 《英语反复修辞探》）
e.g. I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat. (Winston Churchill)
Structure of balance: parallelism; antithesis; climax;
Repetition:
Repetition of sounds:　alliteration; assonance; consonance;
Repetition of words or patterns: a’naphora首语重复; e’piphora尾语重复…
Ad on BBC: Malaysia, truly Asia

3. Functions of figures of speech (in the light of trope and scheme) p89:
1) for association and emphasis
2）for organization and transition
3) for decoration and variation (figurative cf. literal)

2. phonetic figures of speech:
1. Alliteration头韵
（Indeed it has been something of a stylistic instinct among all English-speaking peoples. The skillful introduction of alliteration can greatly intensify the effect of even a matter-of-fact passage.）
Illustration: safe and sound, might and main; friend and foe; hearth and home
Definition: repetition of initial consonant/ vowel in a sequence of words
Effect: for sound rhythm, musical effect emphasis, easy to remember
2. Assonance元音韵/ 半谐韵
Illustration: fish and chips; a deep green stream
Definition: repetition or resemblance of vowel sounds in the stressed syllables of a sequence of words, usu. preceded and followed by different consonants
Effect: musical effect, euphony
More illustrations:
3. Consonance 辅韵/ 尾韵
Illustration: He laughs best who laughs last.
Definition: the repetition of the final and identical consonants whose preceding vowels are different.
Effect:
More illustrations:
With pitiless recognition in fixed eyes,
Lifting distressful hands as if to bless,
And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall,
By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.
P96
Rhyme: In the specific sense, two words rhyme if their final stressed vowel and all following sounds are identical, as in “East or west, home is the best.”
Treat or cheat?
Repetition; musical, easy to remember, emphasis
Emphasize and clarify overall theme

Maiden crowned with blackness,
Lithe 柔软的as panther 黑豹forest-roaming,
Long armed naiad凌波仙子, when she dances,
On a stream of ether云烟（氤氲） floating. (the Spanish Gypsy)

3. phonetic figures of speech:
1. Onomatopoeia
Definition: language sounding like the thing it refers to. The device makes use of imitation of sounds for effect. These sounds may be those made by a person, animal or thing, or associated with some action or movement.
Consonant cluster
Illustration (comparisons): p97
The stream flows through the woods.
The stream murmurs through the woods.
Which is more vivid and lifelike?
Effect: vividness, vitality
2. Pun 双关/一词双义
Definition:
A figure of speech depending on a similarity of sound and a disparity of meaning
--Time flies.
--You can’t. They fly too quickly.
Effect:
"Pun: (n) the lowest form of humour" Samuel Johnson
“But the height of wit.” Common rebuttal to the above

3. Repetition: repetition of sound, word, phrase, sentence/ syntactic pattern
Effects of repetition: (e.g. pp116-117)
1) knit ideas together to achieve coherence
2) emphasize an idea.
3) generate emotional force

4. Anaphora 首语重复(p121)
Definition: repetition of the same word(s) at the beginning of successive clauses, sentences or verses
Effect: parallelism and climax
Illustration:
1) Martin Luther King (p123)

2) Shylock’s argument (p121)

5. Epiphora/ epistrophe尾语重复 (p123)
Definition: repetition of the same words or phrases at the end of successive lines, clauses or sentences.
Illustration: Gettysburg Address (p124) –Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

6. Simploce/ symploce 首尾重复(p126)
Definition:
Assignment: read “Of Studies”

7. Parallelism
Definition and illustration (pp129- )
Repetition of syntactically similar constructions of coordinate sentences or phrase
Effect: emphasis, clarity, coherence
Across sentences/ paragraphs, implications for TEM writing…

8. Antithesis对偶
Definition and illustration (two elements (of two things) that are parallel in structure, and contrastive in meaning, p133)

9. Paradox (p237)似非而是的隽语
Definition: a statement usu. with two parallel elements (of the same thing) which are apparently self-contradictory and yet contain a truth

Effect: To achieve climax (to achieve emphasis) or anticlimax (to create satire or ridicule, be comic or humorous)

10. Climax: 渐进
Arrangement of words, phrases, clauses or sentences in an ascending order of importance (p139). examples: To err is human; to forgive, divine.

11. Anticlimax: 突降

A sudden drop from the dignified or important in thought or expression to the commonplace or trivial
Religion, credit and the eye are not to be touched.

12. Syllepsis一语双叙
3.1 Definition: a single word governing or modifying two or more other expressions (in different semantic fields) must be understood differently with respect to each of those words. Examples:
He lost his coat and his temper.
Effect:
nation of grammatical parallelism and semantic incongruity, often with a witty or comical effect

13. Zeugma轭式搭配
4.1 Definition: A series of expressions joined or yoked together by a single word

14. Chiasmus 回文/交错排列
6.1 Definition: (p146)
ab/ ba

4. semantic figures of speech: simile and metaphor
Simile 明喻，直喻
1. Illustrations:
The city is like a beehive.
Definition: two dissimilar things; common; compare; comparative connective
Functions in general (ref. 4.1; p159): for effective description; for insightful illumination; for imagery illustration
Metaphor
1. Definition (p161 cf. simile p158)
2. Illustrations (pp164-165): visible; invisible
You are my sunshine. (visible metaphor)
3. Functions: (pp165-166)
description; illumination; illustration

5. metonymy and synecdoche
Metonymy转喻/ 借喻/ 旁借/借代
1.1 Illustrations
Mother tongue; Hollywood; 中关村；水立方/ Water Cube；鸟巢/ Bird’s Nest
The pen is mightier than the sword.
Synecdoche
提喻/ 对代
2.1 Illustration
2.2 Definition
7.Antonomasia换称
1.Definition: Identification of a person by an appropriate substituted phrase, such as her majesty for a queen or the Bard of Avon for Shakespeare, the Philosopher commonly used in Renaissance for Aristotle
A common name for a proper name, or a proper name for a common name
A Daniel is come to the judgment.

6. Transferred epithet
Definition (p193):
8. Oxymoron 矛盾修辞格
Sharply dull
bitter sweet, loud/ deafening silence, living dead, controlled chaos, open secret, forward retreat(退一步海阔天空；似退而进) , a white lie
1.Definition
2. Categories (pp230-231)
3. Effect
Contradictory: outside and inside; appearance and essence; feelings
(seemingly absurd, yet insightful, hence surprisingly true)