Compendium Of Research Shifts In Chinese Rhetoric

Chinese rhetoric has been growing over two thousand years since the early Qin Dynasty. A great many scholars have made researches on sorting rhetorical materials, giving an outline of rhetorical development, and recapitulating fundamental laws as well as research characteristics of Chinese rhetorical development. To their credits, this dissertation has explored Chinese rhetorical progress at a macro-rhetorical angle, by viewing different rhetorical types that are based on distinctively different rhetorical outlooks. It has further studied changes in Chinese rhetorical development and has revealed their underlying forces, such as cognition, value, human nature and meaning of life.Rhetorical research was spontaneous in the Qin and Two Hans Dynasties. At that time, rhetoric only loomed in some political or philosophical discussions. Real conscious exploration on rhetoric came into being in Wei-Jin and Southern and Northern Dynasty. "Wen Xin Diao Long" could be considered a representative. However, Chinese rhetoric was affiliated to other subjects, occurring randomly in some fragments of non-rhetorical works before the 20^th century. Its independence was born with the emergence of some works like " An introduction to Rhetoric" in the 20^th century. Modern Chinese rhetoric was a branch of linguistics, based on language-centered outlook and objectivlized methodology. Since the 1980s, broad stylistic context has presented itself, which includes language, psychology, culture and nature so extensively that the scope of rhetorical research has been widely broadened.It is also pointed that the progress of Chinese rhetoric has witnessed continuous changes in various types of rhetorical research from spontaneous reveal to conscious exploration, from the affiliated to an independent subject, and from broad stylistic context to narrow stylistic context. These shifts have displayed underlying forces for Chinese rhetorical development. They are contradictory movement of phenomenal explanation and systematic exposition in cognition, utility and science in value, as well as desire fordevelopment and regression.