Chinese Rhetoric and Writing an Introduction for Language Teachers

CHINESE RHETORIC AND WRITING AN INTRODUCTION FOR LANGUAGE TEACHERS Andy Kirkpatrick and Zhichang Xu CHINESE RHETORIC AND WRITING: AN INTRODUCTION FOR LANGUAGE TEACHERS PERSPECTIVES ON WRITING Series Editor, Susan H. McLeod The Perspectives on Writing series addresses writing studies in a broad sense. Consistent with the wide ranging approaches characteristic of teaching and scholarship in writing across the curriculum, the series presents works that take divergent perspectives on working as a writer, teaching writing, administering writing programs, and studying writing in its various forms. INTERNATIONAL EXCHANGES ON THE STUDY OF WRITING Series Editors, Terry Myers Zawacki, Magnus Gustafsson, and Joan Mullin The International Exchanges on the Study of Writing Series publishes book- length manuscripts that address worldwide perspectives on writing, writers, teaching with writing, and scholarly writing practices, specifically those that draw on scholarship across national and disciplinary borders to challenge pa- rochial understandings of all of the above. The series aims to examine writing activities in 21st-century contexts, particularly how they are informed by glo- balization, national identity, social networking, and increased cross-cultural communication and awareness. As such, the series strives to investigate how both the local and the international inform writing research and the facilita- tion of writing development. The WAC Clearinghouse and Parlor Press are collaborating so that these books will be widely available through free digital distribution and low-cost print editions. The publishers and the Series editor are teachers and researchers of writing, committed to the principle that knowledge should freely circulate. We see the opportunities that new technologies have for further democratizing knowledge. And we see that to share the power of writing is to share the means for all to articulate their needs, interest, and learning into the great experiment of literacy. Other Books in the Perspectives on Writing Series Charles Bazerman and David R. Russell (Eds.), Writing Selves/Writing Societies (2003) Gerald P. Delahunty and James Garvey, The English Language: From Sound to Sense (2009) Charles Bazerman, Adair Bonini, and Débora Figueiredo (Eds.), Genre in a Changing World (2009) David Franke, Alex Reid, and Anthony Di Renzo (Eds.), Design Discourse: Composing and Revising Programs in Professional and Technical Writing (2010) CHINESE RHETORIC AND WRITING: AN INTRODUCTION FOR LANGUAGE TEACHERS Andy Kirkpatrick and Zhichang Xu The WAC Clearinghouse wac.colostate.edu Fort Collins, Colorado Parlor Press www.parlorpress.com Anderson, South Carolina The WAC Clearinghouse, Fort Collins, Colorado 80523 Parlor Press, 3015 Brackenberry Drive, Anderson, South Carolina 29621 © 2012 by Andy Kirkpatrick and Zhichang Xu. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. ISBN 978-0-97270-239-3 (pdf) | 978-0-97270-230-0 (epub) | 978-1-60235-300-8(pbk.) DOI 10.37514/PER-B.2012.2393 Produced in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Chinese rhetoric and writing : an introduction for language teachers / Andy Kirkpatrick and Zhichang Xu. p. cm. -- (Perspectives on writing) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-1-60235-300-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-60235-301-5 (alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-0-97270-239-3 (pdf) -- ISBN 978-0-97270-230-0 (epub) 1. Chinese language--Rhetoric--Study and teaching. 2. Report writing--Study and teaching-- China. I. Xu, Zhichang. II. Title. PL1129.E5K57 2012 495.1’82421--dc23 2012005609 Copyeditor: Don Donahue Designer: Mike Palmquist Perspectives on Writing Series Editor: Susan H. McLeod International Exchanges Series Editors: Terry Myers Zawacki, Magnus Gustafsson, and Joan Mullin The WAC Clearinghouse supports teachers of writing across the disciplines. Hosted by Colorado State University, it brings together scholarly journals and book series as well as resources for teachers who use writing in their courses. This book is available in digital format for free download at wac.colostate.edu. Parlor Press, LLC is an independent publisher of scholarly and trade titles in print and multimedia formats. This book is available in paperback, cloth, and eBook formats from Parlor Press at www.parlorpress.com. For submission information or to find out about Parlor Press publications, write to Parlor Press, 3015 Brackenberry Drive, Anderson, South Carolina 29621, or e-mail [email protected]. CONTENTS Introduction ��3 1 Rhetoric in Ancient China . .13 2 The Literary Background And Rhetorical Styles . .31 3 The Rules of Writing in Medieval China and Europe . .51 4 The Ba Gu Wen（八股文）��75 5 Shuyuan and Chinese Writing Training and Practice . .93 6 Principles of Sequencing and Rhetorical Organisation: Words, Sentences and Complex Clauses . .107 7 Principles of Sequencing and Rhetorical Organisation: Discourse and Text . .125 8 The End of Empire and External Influences . .143 9 Party Politics, the Cultural Revolution and Charter 08 ��163 10 A Review of Contemporary Chinese University Writing (Course) Books . .189 Conclusion ��203 Works Cited ��207 Notes ��221 v CHINESE RHETORIC AND WRITING: AN INTRODUCTION FOR LANGUAGE TEACHERS INTRODUCTION The primary aim of this book is to give teachers of writing, especially those involved in the teaching of English academic writing to Chinese students, an introduction to key stages in the development of Chinese rhetoric. The book will make Western readers familiar with Chinese rhetorical styles and Chinese scholarship on Chinese rhetoric. Chinese rhetoric is a wide-ranging field with a history of several thousand years. This book is concerned with what might be loosely termed non-fiction or “academic” writing and the writing of essays. It therefore does not deal in any depth with the Chinese poetic tradition. While the focus is on writing, principles of persuasion in Chinese oral texts will also be considered. Why is such a book necessary? For some forty years, it has been customary to argue that Chinese students’ academic writing in English has been influenced by traditional Chinese writing styles. Many scholars, both Chinese and Western, have long argued that Chinese rhetorical norms and traditions are somehow unique to Chinese and that these, when transferred into academic writing in English are a source of negative interference (cf. Kaplan; Jia and Cheng; J. Chen). The underlying assumption is that the English writing of these students is, in some way, inappropriate to academic writing in English. The view is that Chinese students bring with them culturally nuanced rhetorical baggage that is uniquely Chinese and hard to eradicate. In this book we shall argue that these views stem from an essentially monolingual and Anglo-centric view of writing and that, given the exponential increase in the international learning and use of English, there needs to be a radical reassessment of what English is in today’s world. It is no more than a truism to point out that there are many more speakers of English who have learned it as an additional language and use it, either as a new variety of English, such as Indian English, or as a lingua franca, than there are native speakers of it. Kingsley Bolton has estimated that there are some 800 million users of English in Asia alone. In China, it has been estimated that there are currently more than 350 million people who are learning English (Xu, Chinese English). This means 3 Introduction that there are more speakers of English in China than the total population of the United States. If we also consider the number of English speakers in Europe and other parts of the world–bearing in mind, for example, that when people who belong to the so-called BRIC group, which comprises Brazil, Russia, India and, China normally communicate through English—it becomes clear that English is now a language far more used by multilinguals than by native speakers. To date, the native speaker and Anglo-American rhetorical styles have remained the benchmarks against which other English users are measured, although many scholars have argued for some years that this needs to change. John Swales suggested that it was time “to reflect soberly on Anglophone gate-keeping practices” (380) and scholars such as Ammon have called for a new culture of communication which respects the non-native speaker (114). Canagarajah (A Geopolitics of Academic Writing) has pointed out that, in this age of globalisation, we need to be able to accommodate and respect people who are moving between different cultural and rhetorical traditions. Likewise we shall here argue that, in today’s globalising and multilingual world “we need to be sensitive to rhetorical traditions and practices in different linguistic and ethnic communities” (You, Writing, 178). We shall describe the Chinese rhetorical tradition in order to illustrate its rich complexity and show that Chinese writing styles are dynamic and change for the same types of reasons and

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