基于读者因素的修辞学诉诸以及英语写作教学

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Abstract

Teaching English composition has long been recognized as one of the most

daunting tasks of college education in China. So this thesis is intended to investigate the

applicability of the audience-oriented rhetorical appeals to the teaching of English

composition.

Audience is the most important element in any kind of persuasion. It is essentially

necessary for college teachers to actively train the students’ audience awareness in their

writing process.

In Rhetoric, Aristotle expounds three means of persuasion: ethos, pathos and logos.

Ethos has to do with the writer’s character or credibility, which manifests in “good

sense, good moral character and goodwill.” Aristotle believes that anyone who is

thought to have all three of these good qualities will inspire trust in his audience. Pathos

means how well the writer taps into the audience’s emotions. The writer who wants to

successfully persuade his audience must take its emotions into consideration. Logos

means the appeals to the audience’s reasoning. Just as the two basic proof methods in

dialectic are induction and deduction, Aristotle, in rhetoric, employs two terms example

and enthymeme, which, in spite of its importance and usefulness in the function of logos,

also has its deficiency. Another view of logical argumentation is presented by Stephen

Toulmin as a canonical argument structure, which can and in fact has been widely used

as a yardstick for logicality of the writing structure.

All the three appeals above are the focus of this thesis and are analyzed in details

and supported with examples respectively in order to make each of them clearly

presented. However, in practical writing, the three often mingle together and influence

one another.

An experiment and a questionnaire involving 154 subjects are designed and

conducted to test the application of the audience-oriented rhetorical appeals to the

teaching of English composition. The results show that the students with the knowledge

of the audience-oriented rhetorical appeals produce better arguments than those without.

Key Words: Ethos, Pathos, Logos, Audience, Writing

iii

摘要

写作教学在中国一直是大学英语教学的难点。本文的目的是研究基于读者因

素的修辞学诉诸理论在英语写作教学中的可行性。

读者因素是任何说服中最主要的因素。大学英语教师必须培养学生在写作过

程中的读者意识。

在《修辞学》中，亚里斯多德详细讲解了说服的三种方法：人格诉诸，情感

诉诸和逻辑诉诸。人格诉诸与作者的品质及可信度有关，表现在“明智，品德，

善意”三个方面。亚里斯多德认为任何人只要能在读者中树立具有这三种品质的

形象，就能赢得读者的信任。情感诉诸是指作者怎样运用情感来打动读者。任何

想成功说服其读者的作者必须把读者的情感因素考虑其中。逻辑诉诸是指诉诸于

读者的逻辑推理。正如辩证法中的两个基本论证方法是归纳和演绎，亚里斯多德

在修辞学中运用了“例证法”和“修辞三段论”。尽管这两种方法在逻辑诉诸中

起着重要而有效的作用，但仍有其缺陷。所以斯蒂芬·图尔明提出的新的逻辑论

证的方法以其典型的论证结构得到广泛的应用，一直以来成为写作结构逻辑性的

标准。

以上三个诉诸是本文的重点，在文中分别进行了详细分析和举例论证。但是

在实际写作中，三者常常一起出现并互相影响。

因此, 本文设计了共有 154 名学生参与的写作教学试验和问卷调查,通过试

验结果的评估和问卷分析,证明学习接受并应用了基于读者因素的修辞学诉诸理

论的学生的作文质量比没有这方面意识的学生的作文质量高。

关键词: 人格诉诸情感诉诸逻辑诉诸读者写作

Contents

Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................... i

Abstract ........................................................................................................................... ii

摘要 .......................................................................................................................... iii

Chapter One Introduction ........................................................................................... 1

§1.1 A Brief Introduction .............................................................................................1

§1.2 Some Narrow Views of Rhetoric In China .......................................................... 1

§1.3 Problems of English Composition Teaching in China .........................................3

§1.4 Theoretical Background of the Present Research ................................................ 4

§1.5 The General Purpose and the Structure of This Study .........................................6

Chapter Two Rhetorical Appeals Based on Audience Factor ................................... 7

§2.1 Definitions of Rhetoric ........................................................................................ 7

§2.2 The Key Notions of Rhetoric ............................................................................... 8

§2.3 The Notion of Audience ......................................................................................9

§2.4 Ethos Based on Audience Factor ...................................................................... 11

§2.4.1 Ethos ........................................................................................................... 11

§2.4.2 The Relationship between Ethos and Ethic ................................................ 13

§2.4.3 Dynamism of Ethos .....................................................................................14

§2.4.4 Establishment of Ethos ............................................................................... 15

§2.5 Pathos Based on Audience Factor ......................................................................17

§2.5.1 Pathos .......................................................................................................... 17

§2.5.2 Basic Emotions ........................................................................................... 18

§2.5.3 Maslow’s Pyramid of Needs ....................................................................... 20

§2.5.4 Establishment of Pathos .............................................................................. 22

§2.6 Logos Based on Audience Factor ...................................................................... 25

§2.6.1 Logos ...........................................................................................................25

§2.6.2 Enthymeme ................................................................................................. 26

§2.6.3 Toulmin’s Model ........................................................................................ 29

§2.6.4 Establishment of Logos ...............................................................................31

§2.7 Summary ............................................................................................................ 33

Chapter Three The Application of the Appeals to the Teaching of Writing ..........35

§3.1 Experiment of Composition Writing ................................................................. 35

§3.1.1 Design of the Experiment ........................................................................... 35

§3.1.2 Procedures ...................................................................................................36

§3.1.3 Evaluation of the Results ............................................................................ 37

§3.1.4 Discussion and Implication .........................................................................41

§3.2 Questionnaire Analysis ...................................................................................... 42

§3.2.1 Procedures ...................................................................................................42

§3.2.2 Results .........................................................................................................43

§3.2.3 Discussion and Implication .........................................................................45

§3.3 Summary ............................................................................................................ 45

Chapter Four Conclusion ............................................................................................46

§4.1 A Brief Summary of the Study .......................................................................... 46

§4.2 Problematic Issues in the Experiment ................................................................47

§4.3 Limitations of the Research ............................................................................... 47

§4.4 Summary ............................................................................................................ 48

Appendices .....................................................................................................................49

Bibliography .................................................................................................................. 53

在读期间公开发表的论文 ............................................................................................ 57

Chapter One Introduction

§1.1 A Brief Introduction

With the development of technology and enhancement of communication, different

parts of the world are more and more closely connected. English, as an international

language proves to be of great significance. English teaching and learning enjoy greater

popularity as China has more opportunities to interact with foreign countries.

Among all the tasks of college English teaching, writing has long been recognized

as one of the most boring and compelling task. It is a common phenomenon that

teachers seem helpless with the students’ poor writing ability while the students are

always complaining about the dullness of the writing course.

Prompted and enlightened by the lectures on Rhetoric and Writing during my

academic study, I pay attention to the aboundant writing theories in the West, hoping

they could provide illumination on the subject. I believe the application of these theories

can make new sparks in the teaching of writing.

As English writing is such a vast topic that a thorough exploration of every aspect

is almost impossible, my study will be narrowed down to argumentation writing, which

is unavoidable in academic writing and in college students’ assignments. In fact,

making an argument —expressing a point of view on a subject and supporting it with

evidence —is often the aim of academic writing. Apart from this, arguments are

everywhere: scholars spend their lives in debating what may be counted as “true”

“right” and “real” in their fields, ordinary people use argumentations in their daily life.

Research indicates that there exists a great difference between western and Chinese

writing in forms of audience awareness. Research on audience awareness has flourished

in the academic study in Britain and the United States, but has been neglected in China.

It can be illustrated by a common classroom phenomenon: written assignments by

Chinese teachers are seldom oriented to an audience.

In the west, Aristotle’s rhetorical appeals have already been widely researched on

and applied to English writing. Nevertheless, in our country, these theories still appear

to be fresh to most Chinese teachers and little has been done to put the theories into

writing practice.

§1.2 Some Narrow Views of Rhetoric In China

Audience-oriented Rhetorical Appeals and the Teaching of English Composition

Many Chinese tend to have a comparatively narrow view of rhetoric, which partly

results in the neglect of audience awareness. The Chinese conception of rhetoric is

commonly believed and portrayed to be language-centered. Though Chinese rhetoric is

originated from debate just like its western counterpart, its focus was shifted from

debate to text, particularly to diction and sentence choice. According to a questionnaire

I made, all the subjects centered on figures of speech, which is in accordance with the

definition of rhetoric. To be frank, I also had the same narrow view before the research.

According to Zhang Gong( 张弓 ), rhetoric aims at persuading people or proving

arguments during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period in

Chinese history. But ever since the time of Han dynasty, Chinese rhetoric has been

known as text-centered, with oral discourse falling into the limbo.

Being language-centered, the rhetoric is not centered on persuading, but rather it

serves for literature appreciation with poetry and prose as the main source of material.

So style and figures of speech constitute the bulk of the rhetoric, which can be testified

from the following definitions of rhetoric:

In the process of speaking and writing, one should consider the choice of words

and the organization of sentences to reflect objective realities correctly, clearly and

vividly —this is so-called rhetoric (修辞编写组, 1978: 1)1.

Rhetoric is means to purify and beautify language (王钟林,王志斌, 1982: 2)2.

Rhetorical activity is an activity to process language and rhetoric is a science to

study the art of processing language (李玉德, 1985: 3)3.

Even the Chinese term “xiuci”, when translated into English, means “modification

of words or expressions, which connotes a very narrow view of rhetoric. Chinese People

often say “that’s mere rhetoric!” to mean what they have just heard or read is very

eloquent and forceful, but it is by no account a hundred percent sincere or true. When

people say “he speaks rhetorically”, they mean that the speaker has used a profusion of

charming expressions though he may not have much to say.

This narrow view of rhetoric brings about a strange phenomenon. Being language-

centered, Chinese rhetoric is usually confined to sentence and words and expressions;

once the rhetoric outsteps this boundary, people will think it cares too much.

1在说话或写文章的过程中，经常要考虑如何把词语选用的恰当些，把句子组织的好一些，使自己的语言能

够准确、鲜明、生动的反映客观事物。这就是我们所说的修辞。

2修辞就是净化和美化语言的手段。

3修辞活动，就是对语言进行加工的活动，修辞学也就是研究语言加工艺术的一种科学。

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摘要：

iiAbstractTeachingEnglishcompositionhaslongbeenrecognizedasoneofthemostdauntingtasksofcollegeeducationinChina.Sothisthesisisintendedtoinvestigatetheapplicabilityoftheaudience-orientedrhetoricalappealstotheteachingofEnglishcomposition.Audienceisthemostimportantelementinanykindofpersuasion.Itisessenti...

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