Chinese Rhetoric and Writing

Zhichang Xu, Andy Kirkpatrick

Description

Andy Kirkpatrick and and Zhichang Xu offer a response to the argument that Chinese students’ academic writing in English is influenced by “culturally nuanced rhetorical baggage that is uniquely Chinese and hard to eradicate.” Noting that this argument draws from “an essentially monolingual and Anglo-centric view of writing,” they point out that the rapid growth in the use of English worldwide calls for “a radical reassessment of what English is in today’s world.” The result is a book that provides teachers of writing, and in particular those involved in the teaching of English academic writing to Chinese students, an introduction to key stages in the development of Chinese rhetoric, a wide-ranging field with a history of several thousand years. Understanding this important rhetorical tradition provides a strong foundation for assessing and responding to the writing of this growing group of students.

Sujets

• Foreign Language study
• Lettres et linguistique
• Language
• English

Informations

• Publié par: Parlor Press, LLC
• Date de parution: 07 mars 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781602353039
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

PERSPECTIVES ON WRITING
Series Editor, Susan H. McLeod
The Perspectives on Writing series addresses writing studies in a broad sense. Consistent with the wide ranging approaches characteristic of teaching and scholarship in writing across the curriculum, the series presents works that take divergent perspectives on working as a writer, teaching writing, administering writing programs, and studying writing in its various forms.
The WAC Clearinghouse and Parlor Press are collaborating so that these books will be widely available through free digital distribution and low-cost print editions. The publishers and the Series editor are teachers and researchers of writing, committed to the principle that knowledge should freely circulate. We see the opportunities that new technologies have for further democratizing knowledge. And we see that to share the power of writing is to share the means for all to articulate their needs, interest, and learning into the great experiment of literacy.
Other Books in the Series
Charles Bazerman and David R. Russell (Eds.), W riting Selves/Writing Societies (2003)
Gerald P. Delahunty and James Garvey, The English Language: From Sound to Sense (2009)
Charles Bazerman, Adair Bonini, and Débora Figueiredo (Eds.), Genre in a Changing World (2009)
David Franke, Alex Reid, and Anthony Di Renzo (Eds.), Design Discourse: Composing and Revising Programs in Professional and Technical Writing (2010)
Martine Courant Rife, Shaun Slattery, and Dànielle Nicole DeVoss (Eds.), Copy(write) : Intellectual Property in the Writing Classroom (2011)
Doreen Starke-Meyerring, Anthony Paré, Natasha Artemeva, Miriam Horne, and Larissa Yousoubova, Writing in Knowledge Societies (2011)


Chinese Rhetoric and Writing: An Introduction for Language Teachers
Andy Kirkpatrick and Zhichang Xu
The WAC Clearinghouse
wac.colostate.edu
Fort Collins, Colorado
Parlor Press
www.parlorpress.com
Anderson, South Carolina

The WAC Clearinghouse, Fort Collins, Colorado 80523-1052
Parlor Press, 3015 Brackenberry Drive, Anderson, South Carolina 29621
© 2012 by Andy Kirkpatrick and Zhichang Xu. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kirkpatrick, Andy.
Chinese rhetoric and writing : an introduction for language teachers / Andy Kirkpatrick and Zhichang Xu.
p. cm. -- (Perspectives on writing)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-60235-300-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-60235-301-5 (alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-60235-302-2 (adobe ebook) -- ISBN 978-1-60235-303-9 (epub)
1. Chinese language--Rhetoric--Study and teaching. 2. Report writing--Study and teaching--China. I. Xu, Zhichang. II. Title.
PL1129.E5K57 2012
495.1’82421--dc23
2012005609
Copyeditor: Don Donahue
Designer: Mike Palmquist
Series Editor: Susan H. McLeod
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
The WAC Clearinghouse supports teachers of writing across the disciplines. Hosted by Colorado State University, it brings together scholarly journals and book series as well as resources for teachers who use writing in their courses. This book is available in digital format for free download at http://wac.colostate.edu .
Parlor Press, LLC is an independent publisher of scholarly and trade titles in print and multimedia formats. This book is available in paperback, cloth, and eBook formats from Parlor Press at http://www.parlorpress.com . For submission information or to find out about Parlor Press publications, write to Parlor Press, 3015 Brackenberry Drive, Anderson, South Carolina 29621, or e-mail [e-mail] .


Contents
Introduction
1 Rhetoric in Ancient China
2 The Literary Background And Rhetorical Styles
3 The Rules of Writing 9 in Medieval China and Europe
4 The Ba Gu Wen （八股文）
5 Shuyuan and Chinese Writing Training and Practice
6 Principles of Sequencing and Rhetorical Organisation: Words, Sentences and Complex Clauses
7 Principles of Sequencing and Rhetorical Organisation: Discourse and Text
8 The End of Empire and External Influences
9 Party Politics, the Cultural Revolution and Charter 08
10 A Review of Contemporary Chinese University Writing (Course) Books
Conclusion
Works Cited
Notes


Introduction
The primary aim of this book is to give teachers of writing, especially those involved in the teaching of English academic writing to Chinese students, an introduction to key stages in the development of Chinese rhetoric. The book will make Western readers familiar with Chinese rhetorical styles and Chinese scholarship on Chinese rhetoric.
Chinese rhetoric is a wide-ranging field with a history of several thousand years. This book is concerned with what might be loosely termed non-fiction or “academic” writing and the writing of essays. It therefore does not deal in any depth with the Chinese poetic tradition. While the focus is on writing, principles of persuasion in Chinese oral texts will also be considered.
Why is such a book necessary? For some forty years, it has been customary to argue that Chinese students’ academic writing in English has been influenced by traditional Chinese writing styles. Many scholars, both Chinese and Western, have long argued that Chinese rhetorical norms and traditions are somehow unique to Chinese and that these, when transferred into academic writing in English are a source of negative interference (cf. Kaplan; Jia and Cheng; J. Chen). The underlying assumption is that the English writing of these students is, in some way, inappropriate to academic writing in English. The view is that Chinese students bring with them culturally nuanced rhetorical baggage that is uniquely Chinese and hard to eradicate.
In this book we shall argue that these views stem from an essentially monolingual and Anglo-centric view of writing and that, given the exponential increase in the international learning and use of English, there needs to be a radical reassessment of what English is in today’s world. It is no more than a truism to point out that there are many more speakers of English who have learned it as an additional language and use it, either as a new variety of English, such as Indian English, or as a lingua franca, than there are native speakers of it. Kingsley Bolton has estimated that there are some 800 million users of English in Asia alone. In China, it has been estimated that there are currently more than 350 million people who are learning English (Xu, Chinese English ). This means that there are more speakers of English in China than the total population of the United States. If we also consider the number of English speakers in Europe and other parts of the world–bearing in mind, for example, that when people who belong to the so-called BRIC group, which comprises Brazil, Russia, India and, China normally communicate through English—it becomes clear that English is now a language far more used by multilinguals than by native speakers.
To date, the native speaker and Anglo-American rhetorical styles have remained the benchmarks against which other English users are measured, although many scholars have argued for some years that this needs to change. John Swales suggested that it was time “to reflect soberly on Anglophone gate-keeping practices” (380) and scholars such as Ammon have called for a new culture of communication which respects the non-native speaker (114). Canagarajah ( A Geopolitics of Academic Writing) has pointed out that, in this age of globalisation, we need to be able to accommodate and respect people who are moving between different cultural and rhetorical traditions. Likewise we shall here argue that, in today’s globalising and multilingual world “we need to be sensitive to rhetorical traditions and practices in different linguistic and ethnic communities” (You, Writing, 178).
We shall describe the Chinese rhetorical tradition in order to illustrate its rich complexity and show that Chinese writing styles are dynamic and change for the same types of reasons and in the same types of ways as writing styles in other great literate cultures. In particular, we will argue that the socio-political context is a main driver of change in Chinese writing styles. To argue, therefore, that Chinese students bring with them culturally determined and virtually ineradicable rhetorical traditions to their English writing is to overlook the contextual influences of writing styles and the rich and complex Chinese rhetorical tradition. It also overlooks the value of different rhetorical traditions. The aim of the teacher of writing should not be to gut the English of the Chinese writer of local cultural and rhetorical influences, but to look to see how these can be combined with other rhetorical “norms” to form innovative and effective texts. This will require the writing teacher to have some knowledge of Chinese rhetorical practices. This book will provide writing teachers with a reference to the ways Chinese writing styles have developed over time and a clear understanding of how writing styles change and develop.
An example may help illustrate this point. Chapter 3 includes a summary of the Wen Ze or Rules of Writing . This was written by Chen Kui in 1170. The Wen Ze is an important text, being commonly referred to by Chinese scholars as China’s first systematic account of rhetoric (Zheng; Zong and Li; Zhou).
The rhetorical principles that The Rules of Writing promulgates include the importance of using clear and straightforward language, the primacy of meaning over form, and ways of arranging argument. These principles were, in large part, deter