Chinese Rhetoric and Writing - An Introduction for Language Teachers, 2012a

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Chapter 7 So, while we agree with Young’s analysis of this interaction that the Chinese police are transferring their native discourse patterns to English, it is suggested that these discourse patterns are not those of topic-comment. Rather the discourse pattern being followed adheres to a subordinate /frame-main or modifying-modified information sequence. This “frame-main” or “becausetherefore” sequence adheres to the fundamental principle of logical and natural sequencing in Chinese. We now demonstrate this with examples taken from naturally occurring Chinese discourse and text. The three pieces of data to be analysed represent one relatively informal occasion (a university seminar) a more formal occasion (a press conference given by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs) 18 and a text from the author Lu Xun. The first example comes from the question and answer session which took place after the speaker had given a seminar at a well-known Australian university. The speaker would have not known what sort of questions he would be asked and had no time to plan his answers. This then represents an informal unplanned occasion. We include this, however, as the rhetorical organisation of the discourse follows the principles we have identified, even though it is informal and unplanned. The second piece of data is taken from a Foreign Affairs press conference. While this text was delivered orally, it was planned and pre-written. It is thus a written text delivered orally in a relatively formal setting. The third example comes from an essay written by possibly the most famous Chinese writer of the early twentieth century, Lu Xun. THE UNIVERSITY SEMINAR This was delivered in Modern Standard Chinese by a native speaker from Mainland China, and was entitled “The Peking Student Movement of 1989. A Bystander’s View.” The talk was attended by some thirty people. Although some of those who attended were not native Chinese speakers, all present were able to speak MSC and the entire proceedings—the talk and the question and answer session that followed it—were conducted in MSC. As indicated above, the atmosphere was informal. The speaker was not acting in any official capacity and was certainly not there to give the official line of the events of June 4th (the Tiananmen Massacre). Furthermore, the speaker had personal friends in the audience. Although a long time resident of Beijing, the speaker was living in Australia at the time of the seminar in Australia and has an Australian wife. We here analyse the question and answer session rather than the talk itself, as the question and answer session was spontaneous in the sense that the speaker had no foreknowledge of any of the questions that he was asked. The speaker’s answers 128
Principles of Sequencing and Rhetorical Organisation therefore provided good examples of unplanned spontaneous spoken discourse. As explained earlier, we include this because, despite its spontaneous and informal nature, it still follows the fundamental principles of rhetorical organisation. The first extract is taken from the speaker’s answer to a question asking whether the Chinese students welcomed foreign participation in the Chinese student movement. This has been chosen because it shows a “because-therefore” sequence operating at sentence level. But as we shall see in the analysis of a second extract taken from this answer, this sentence level “because-therefore” sequence can itself be part of a piece of discourse whose overall sequence is also “because-therefore,” or what we are calling the “frame-main” pattern. The first excerpt occurs thirteen lines into the answer dealing with foreign involvement in the June 4th “incident.” In the previous twelve lines, the speaker has pointed out that some students were in favour of foreign involvement and that others were against it. He has raised the legal question but has also said that the law is a “fascist” one. He then says: 2. because (yinwei) we haven’t faced this question, I and my wife both have Beijing residence permits, therefore (suoyi) I haven’t more thoroughly investigated this problem. The speaker explains that he has not thought very much about the question of foreign participation in the student movement because he and his wife are not foreigners. (Actually his wife is an Australian but, as he explains, she has a Beijing residence permit, so, for the purposes of the question presumably doesn’t count as a foreigner). Note that “I and my wife both have Beijing residence permits” is itself a reason for why they have not faced the question of foreign participation. The suoyi is linking with the yinwei in line one of the example and is separated from it by the secondary reason. This shows that suoyi can refer back to reasons separated from it by other information. As we shall show, suoyi often operates as a discourse marker across lengthy texts. Note also that the information sequence follows the “because-therefore” sequence, and that the subordinate-main clause sequence is operating here at a level above the clause. This information sequence, with its overt and covert discourse markers, can be represented as: Sequence Reason Reason for reason Therefore Connectors yinwei no overt marker suoyi 129
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CHINESE RHETORIC AND WRITING AN INT
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PERSPECTIVES ON WRITING Series Edit
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The WAC Clearinghouse, Fort Collins
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CHINESE RHETORIC AND WRITING: AN IN
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Introduction that there are more sp
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Introduction in Beijing, where he a
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Introduction Chapter 1 also demonst
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Introduction common, along with the
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Chapter 1 called various branches o
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Chapter 1 plea, or speech, into eit
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Chapter 1 the temple and the hall,
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Chapter 1 were used to successively
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Chapter 1 from Emperor to subject,
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Chapter 1 getting confused, who soa
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Chapter 1 similarities of the advic
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Chapter 1 to create an environment
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2 THE LITERARY BACKGROUND AND RHETO
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Literary Background and Rhetorical
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3 THE RULES OF WRITING 9 IN MEDIEVA
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The Rules of Writing In Medieval Ch
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Chapter 4 we shall argue, using con
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Party Politics, the Cultural Revolu
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Chapter 10 UNIVERSITY WRITING COURS
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Chapter 10 “explaining, expoundin
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Chapter 10 but a weak and incompati
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Chapter 10 writing process, for exa
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Chapter 10 and task for 2000 was a
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Chapter 10 writing compositions] is
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Chapter 10 common for non-Chinese m
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Conclusion BECAUSE x n +THEREFORE x
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Conclusion current lack of an accep
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Works Cited Chafe, Wallace L. “Gi
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Works Cited “Four Examination Ess
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Works Cited Kirkpatrick, Andy. “A
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Works Cited Ma, Zhengping. Advanced
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Works Cited Sun, Shaozhen. “Prefa
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Works Cited Yang, Ling, and David C
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NOTES This chronological division
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Chinese Rhetoric and Writing (biogr
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Chinese Rhetoric and Writing - An Introduction for Language Teachers, 2012a

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