英语修辞学ENGLISH RHETORIC - introduction to this course.ppt

ENGLISH RHETORIC 英语修辞学 Welcome to our challenging English RHETORIC class for the spring semester of 2010. It is time for all of you to brace for the challenge of further enhancing your English proficiency from a diverse perspective. Course description RHETORIC simply means the art of speaking and writing effectively and persuasively. In fact, this course is designed to familiarize students of English as a foreign language with efficient communication, primarily endeavoring to enhance the development of speaking and reading, writing proficiency. To achieve this goal of learning on the part of students, the instructor will start with the definition of rhetoric, a brief and interesting survey of the history of rhetoric with emphasis on several major classical rhetoricians and their theories and application (Aristotle, Plato, and Hermagoras) in speaking, reading and writing. Then this course moves on to the choice of words and sentences and diverse figures of speech commonly used in English. Selected articles and famous speeches (e.g., Abraham Lincoln‘s “Gettysburg Address”, William Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” and John F. Kennedy’s 1961 inaugural address) will be discussed for an analysis of their rhetorical effect or figures of speech. Textbook: English RHETORIC (by Xiuguo Zhang, 2005. Beijing: Tsinghua University Press and Beijing Jiaotong University Press) References: 1. Ancient Rhetorics for Cotemporary Students 2. 追求象征的力量 3. 英汉修辞跨文化研究 Rhetoric is power. Whoever does not study rhetoric will become a victim of it. ---Ancient Greek wall inscription Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep, moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend. ---Francis Bacon I. What is rhetoric? rhetoric n. 1. (technical term) the skill or the art of using language effectively and persuasively in speech or writing修辞;修辞学; 修辞技巧 2. (general word) a. A style of speaking or writing, 语言艺术 the rhetoric of fiction, body rhetoric