Modern Chinese Rhetoric

Author: Wu Liqian
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2006-11-01
Features: Once, some professors from Taiwan discussed together: "Is the Chinese nation the most outstanding nation in the world?" The discussion did not reach a conclusion. However, there was one point on which everyone agreed: "culinary arts" and "elegant language" are undoubtedly the two greatest strengths of the Chinese nation, unmatched in the world! It is universally acknowledged that the Chinese are fond of culinary arts; it is well-known that the Chinese pay attention to elegant language. As early as the pre-Qin era, Confucius famously said: "Speech without elegance cannot travel far"; the Book of Changes?Prose Commentary states: "What moves the world lies in language"; Xunzi remarked: "The beauty of language is profound and majestic"; the Han Dynasty scholar Liu Xiang more explicitly declared: "Speech cannot be unsuitable, and language cannot be unrefined"; the Southern Dynasties literary theorist Liu Xie said: "The eloquence of one person is more valuable than the nine-dragon cauldrons; the power of a three-inch tongue surpasses that of a million troops." The reason why the Chinese value rhetoric and excel at elegant language can be traced back to historical roots. So, how can one create elegant language? How can one make one's speech captivating and compelling, and one's writing enchanting? Modern Chinese Rhetoric will provide you with valuable insights, as if drinking nectar and suddenly finding enlightenment. Modern Chinese Rhetoric is one of the modern Chinese series textbooks for universities in the 21st century, approved by the Ministry of Education. It is a new and powerful work by Wu Liqian, a young linguistics professor and doctoral supervisor at Fudan University, who has accumulated 20 years of academic research, thoroughly prepared and meticulously crafted over five revisions, taking six years to complete. The book contains 400,000 words, excluding the "Introduction," and is divided into nine chapters. In addition to comprehensively revealing the various rhetorical principles from words, sentences, paragraphs to text structure, and summarizing specific and effective rhetorical text models, it systematically integrates the latest rhetorical theories into the text in an accessible manner. The rhetorical principles it summarizes can be described as scientific and comprehensive; the rhetorical principles it generalizes are profound and incisive; its explanation of the psychological mechanisms of rhetorical text construction is pioneering; its analysis of the profound and subtle meanings of rhetorical texts is like a butcher dissecting an ox. Apart from the clear and logical presentation of theory and the solid arguments of academic principles, the book is the first to apply modern quantitative statistical analysis methods in rhetoric, conducting "quantitative" analyses of the relationships between various styles of modern Chinese, different speech styles, and rhetoric. It uses irrefutable data to validate the rhetorical principles it derives, giving the book a stronger scientific and modern touch of the times.