A Rhetorical Reinterpretation Of Roger T.Ames' Scholarly Practice

As a subject of formal study devoted to the understanding and application of the power of language,rhetoric has played a crucial role in the evolution of western civilization,affecting practically all the social activities,to which scholarship is no exception.In fact,rhetoric has so permeated academia that few scholars have ever doubted the rhetorical nature of their works.For them,rhetoric supplies the most crucial perspective and the interpretative apparatus.Therefore,understanding rhetoric's role in academic research and a critical perspective towards scholarly claims are the prerequisite of truly understanding the West and its scholarship as well as the primary approach for China to have her own say in the international arena.Unfortunately,due to historical and cultural limitations," rhetoric" in Chinese discourse has frequently been equated with stylistic devices like figures and tropes,thus often dismissed as lacking rigor in academic research,let alone the notion of "scholarship is a special genre of rhetoric".Although Roger T.Ames'scholarship of comparative philosophy and sinology translation is highly controversial and has drawn fire from Western academic circles,he has come to be regarded as an authority on Chinese philosophy and little serious and systematic criticism has been raised concerning his"philosophical" assertion on Chinese culture,a result of his great academic prestige on Chinese scholarship as well as an ignorance of his rhetorical maneuver on the part of Chinese academia.To cope with the situation,this study conducts a rhetorical reinterpretation on Ames' scholarship within the framework of comparative rhetoric.Through a recontextualization of his scholarship and an analysis of his intended audience,rhetorical purpose,textual strategies and rhetorical effects,this study aims to reevaluate Ames'scholarship critically.This study identifies comparison,translation,argumentation and identity shift as Ames' major devices of scholarly rhetoric,revealing both a rhetorically sophisticated scholar and his rhetorically constructed scholarship.Consequently,this case study illustrates the rhetorical reinterpretation of scholarly writings and offers some suggestions for raising the rhetorical consciousness of Chinese scholars in general.The rhetorical reinvestigation of academic criticism in China in general,and academic criticism in comparative study and sinology in particular,testifies to a conceptual lag in discourse between China and the West.It reveals that an ignorance on the rhetorical nature of scholarship is the very reason why Chinese academia surrender the discursive right of defining and interpreting Chinese culture to a foreign scholar such as Ames.Though a rhetorical case study on Ames'scholarship constitutes the bulk of the present study,this thesis aims to highlight the absence of rhetorical perspective in comparative study and sinology and address the problem by introducing and integrating rhetorical resources into their conceptual framework.