Modern Chinese Rhetorical Study

The rhetorical question, which is regarded as one of typical functional patterns and characteristic of a variety of expressions and functions, is very common in spoken Chinese. The modern Chinese rhetorical question is the study object of the dissertation, which purpose is to tire rhetorical questions system, and make a qualitative and quantitative analysis of its use in discourse on the functionalistic viewpoint. At the same time, a contrast is made to serve the teaching between the conclusions drawn in the research and rhetorical questions of the Chinese interlanguage. In the dissertation, most of all important, it is sociolinguistic methodology that has been adopted in material collecting and discourse analyzing.After a review of the literature on the rhetorical question we have found that the former research mainly concentrates on the macro and static level. Although the outcome is quiet valuable, there are some disagreements on its nature, formation and function. More and more attention has been given to it and the research gradually detailed since the end of 1980s. The dissertation has made a careful summary of the former outcomes and objective and on-line analysis of discourse.The functionalistic methods can be seen all through the dissertationand two principles exist, which are the fuzzy relevant to the border between the sentences and gradience relevant to the family of the rhetorical question. A definition is made from inside to outside, difference from other sentence types and classification from many aspects in the dissertation. We regard the rhetorical question as a family consisting of core and non-core members and function and analyzing them. In making a careful description of its structural features and marked types, we construe the syntactic frame about the marked rhetorical questions, summarize the discourse function and make a preliminary survey of the correspondence between the formal and functional types based on the statistic analysis of 3313 marked typical sentences.The dissertation has made a careful analysis of the features and functions of such components of the rhetorical question as adverb, modal verb, interrogative pronoun and other special ones. A special attention is given to modal verb and interrogative pronoun in the rhetorical question.Another key study is concerned with the application of the rhetorical question to the common conversation. Specifically speaking, we apply the sociolinguistic methods to collects real corpus and thereby analyze the cooperative and polite principles and the probabilities of the communication in using the rhetorical question, which is closely related to culture.The discourse analysis theory and one-to-one dialogue are kept inanalyzing the application of the rhetorical question to the discourse, for example, its place, type, coherence, condition, choice model, feedback, reduction and clear-up. Besides, tone and intensity are also concerned and analyzed. What has been done in this dissertation can make up for something that is rarely seen before.Finally, a contrast is made between the results of the research and acquisition of the interlanguage rhetorical questions. And the dissertation has made an analysis of the successful and unsuccessful acquisition and has offered some teaching strategies that underlies parallel meaning — rhetorical questions object — functional frame — situational reoccurrence.Some methods of research on functional sentence types are introduced in the conclusion. Some limitations are also exposed for the future research.