A Comparative Study Between The Chinese-and Japanese

In this paper, we shall start with trying to analyze the source of ideas, structure, methods of argumentation and innovation of Xijie Wang and Nobuo Sato's rhetoric system's origin, in order to show how did the most representative rhetoricians absorb from their own traditional culture, and in the meantime borrow new perspective and methods from western culture, as well as in which aspects do their rhetoric theories represent the characteristics of contemporary Chinese-Japanese rhetorical thoughts, and the merits and defects of those characteristics. This article is divided into 4 chapters after a preface.In the preface, briefly introducing the background of this article, the current researching situations and meanings, general contents and basic ways of thinking. It also includes a general introduction to the last 100 years of Chinese-Japanese rhetoric.The first chapter is "Commentary on Xijie Wang's Rhetoric". Xijie Wang's rhetoric inherited, since Chen Wangdao, from those who carried on the basic spirit of Chinese contemporary rhetoric, in which rhetoric is considered the "tool" or "means" for people to show their emotions and socialize. Chen Wangdao distinguished "negative rhetoric and positive rhetoric", "the Realm of narrative and the Realm of expression". Also Xijie Wang emphasized that in the research of rhetoric one must pay attention to "zero degree form and diverge form", "dominant synonym and latent synonym", which is actually rooted in Western rhetoric's awareness and aesthetic (elocution and poetics)'s dual function distinction, which date from ancient Greek times. Xijie Wang's innovation is reflected in three aspects. One is particularly emphasized by him, which is application effect of rhetoric. He defines rhetoric as "the language science of research on the laws of improving the effect of linguistic expressions". The second is the "Four World Theory" of his rhetoric, i.e. "the language world, physical world, cultural world and mental world", in which the "language world" covers the rest of the three worlds. The last one is his system methods, absorbing from western contemporary structuralism and signifies methods, it uses the ancient Chinese "Book of Changes" (Yi Jing) as an example, trying to include all phenomena in rhetoric with a set of interrelated dynamic systems.The 2rd chapter is "Commentary on Nobuo Sato's rhetoric". Nobuo Sato's rhetoric theory aims to place itself at the height of philosophy of language, trying to create an ontology system with the color of epistemology. It achieved notable success. His theoretical views are based on criticizing the previous researchers' works. He is against the application of persuasion or elocution for the purpose of explaining rhetoric, and he also opposes explaining rhetoric as "knowledge of beautifying phraseology". Nevertheless, he proposed the idea of "the Third View", which is the 3rd function of rhetoric but also the most essential one. It is the discovery and creation of the process of "Recognizing Mold-making" based on the Rhetoric sense. He applied this view throughout the explanation of various rhetorical figures, solving a set of problems which existed for a long time in the Japanese rhetorical field, and formed his common logic system. From there he broke through the previous western rhetorical dualism's common mold, and made a new path for Japanese's own rhetoric theory. The third chapter, "Comparing Xijie Wang and Nobuo Sato's rhetoric", compares their rhetorical views at three levels, based on the above mentioned study. At the first level, their logic starting points are compared. The logic starting point of Wang is "the effect of expression", in other words, evaluation on whether the language expression is "good or not". This is actually showing the Essence of Chinese traditional rhetoric thinking, for example that rhetoric is founded on honesty. Whereas Nobuo Sato's rhetorical starting point is "the feeling to rhetoric". Comparatively, both of them have extended the western rhetorical dichotomous model, but Wang's additions are based on application principles, while Nobuo Sato's is based on feeling principles. In a nutshell, we can put the two principles as, respectively, "rhetoric is founded on honesty" and "rhetoric is founded on the sense", which is different from western rhetoric's "rhetoric is founded on the truth". The second level consists of the comparison of system structure. Wang's rhetoric is elaborated as a "3-1" structure, i.e.3 groups of concepts and one principle. The first group of concepts is that "the four world" consist rhetorical research's general horizon. The second group is "zero degree and deviation", discussing how rhetoric deviated from the zero expression with no rhetoric at all, forming different rhetoric positions, angles, extents and categories. The third group is "dominant and latent", discussing how to find latent rhetoric from dominant rhetoric, and manage the laws of how new rhetoric figures transfer from latent to dominant, so as to show the essence of the dynamic growth of rhetoric activity. The last one is "the fit", as the premiere principle throughout all the 3 groups of concepts. In the contrary, Nobuo Sato's rhetoric system is not as such an architectural structure, but a linear logic structure, with a rhetoric spirit going through various rhetoric figures as a "soul", which is the "feeling" to rhetoric. As to Nobuo Sato, all the different figures are approaches to the feelings on different levels or at different angles, he took several typical figures in order to enlighten the creative structural role the feeling is playing. It has a taste of linguistic philosophy. Both of them have one thing in common, which is consciously revealing the openness of the system of rhetoric. While the difference lies in that Wang's openness is inductive, pursuing perfection, while Nobuo Sato's openness has a kind of logic clue, so it does not need completion but alignment and consistency. The third level is the comparison between the methods. Wang's rhetoric includes almost everything throughout history and different countries for its method, but in general it's Yi Jing's Dialectics, while Nobuo Sato's is more influenced by Western Dialectics, modern semiotics and structuralism. Finally, this paper is going to comment on and evaluate both rhetorics, revealing their advantages and disadvantages.The 4th chapter is "General comparison of Chinese-Japanese contemporary rhetoric theories' tendencies", and overviews the Chinese and Japanese modern, contemporary rhetoric thoughts, trying to reflect that the two persons' rhetorics are not individual exceptions, but were generated by the wide Zeitgeist as a background. Those rhetorics with different or even the opposite view share a common tendency. Chinese contemporary rhetoric's tendency is to "leave and regression", while Japanese contemporary rhetoric is "to take "and "to transcend". Both sides have a tendency to endeavor and march to a higher rhetoric-philosophy, but the Japanese side, having Nobuo Sato as the lead, is taking the first step, and established a rhetoric-philosophy system with Japanese cultural characters and mingles with western rhetoric. The Chinese rhetoric needs to learn from it.The final conclusion "to establish a rhetoric-philosophy idea with Chinese features" has proposed a daring plan, that based on the Chinese "rhetoric is founded on honest" we can build a general rhetoric philosophy that involves western "rhetoric is founded on truth" and Japanese "rhetoric is founded on sense".A Comparative Study Between the Chinese-and Japanese-Rhetoric in the Present Age with the Example Wang Xijie and Sato Nobuo...