Pre - Qin Confucian Rhetoric Research

Confucius, Mencius, and Xun Zi, the three representatives of Confucianism in the pre-Qin Dynasty period, were not only great ideologists and philosophers but outstanding masters of language. Their intelligent and profound words were extensively popular and endured the testing of history, some of which have become well-known logia and epigrams to the world. They not only expanded the vocabulary choices of numerous later writers and influenced their thoughts and language styles, but also exerted deep effect on the average people's ideas and lives for generations. In view of this, this thesis attempts to make a systematic investigation, against the historical, social and cultural background in the Spring-Autumn and Warring States Period, into the thoughts and practice on rhetoric as well as styles of language in the Confucianist school in this period, represented by Confucius, Mencius, and Xun Zi. It analyzes the social, political and cultural roots from which those thoughts and practice grow, and compares them with those held by Taoists, Mohists and Legalists, in hope of achieving a general understanding of the rhetoric features and their historical significance of the Confucianist school during the pre-Qin Dynasty period, and an objective comment on the contribution made to the later research on rhetorics in China.This thesis is divided into eight parts. The part of introduction mainly concerns with the motivation, methods and significance of the present research. The pre-Qin Dynasty period was critical in China's history. It witnessed the alteration of societies and regimes, the expansion of preaching, and the competition and debate between various schools of thoughts, through which language experienced its unprecedented use and development. Each school provided some insights in their explanations of their claims on politics and philosophy, with the Confucianist school most outstanding. The view held by Confucius, Mencius, and Xun Zi on rhetoric complemented and supported each other, forming a quite consistent and relatively found system. In addition, their rich and specific practice on rhetoric enabled them to apply fluently rhetoric skills of all kinds. However, the want of systematic and thorough research in this field led to the so-called "four-extras-and-four-lacks" problem with the studies on the Confucianist use of rhetoric, which was extremely unparallel with the admirable position held by Confucianism in China's history. By applying theories of modem rhetorics and in the methods of demonstration, comparison, and induction, the present thesis provides an all-round analysis and discussion on the Confucian rhetoric, with reference to the findings in other relevant fields such as literature, aesthetics, philosophy, philology, scholium, sematics, pragmatics, and hermeneutics.Chapter One deals with Confucius and the origin of the Chinese term "xiuci" (rhetoric in English). The earliest combination of "xiu" and "ci" appeared in a book called "Book of Changes·Qian·Classical records", when it was used by Confucius to comment on "Book of Changes", one of the most essential works in Chinese culture. Here, "xiu" meaned modification, while "ci" referred to discourse that can completely express a purpose, either in speech or writing. Such a sense of the term "xiu ci" served as a starting point of the development of Chinese rhetoric studies, from which a variety of later definitions of the term "xiu ci" derives. That is to say, the term "xiu ci", first coined by Confucius in the commentary about "Book of Changes", has a deep historical connection with the present rhetoric and serves as the origin of the title of the Chinese rhetoric subject.The second chapter is about the thoughts held by Confucius, Mencius, and Xun Zi on rhetoric. Their views on rhetoric mingled with their arguments on the relevant issues in politics, philosophy and debate. Although they appeared to be fragmentary and scattered here and there, those views in fact shaped into a relatively found system of thoughts on rhetoric. According to the three great thinkers, wording and diction performed a great function in the social, political and moral life. They could not only help one express feelings and willing, but also facilitate one in the ways of the world; not only help to survive one's personal safety and that of one's family, but also maintain the stability and solidarity of the whole society and the impregnable position of a regime in foreign affairs. In the light of this, they proposed a set of wording methods for what to say, how to say and how to listen. They asserted that one should be cautious about the words he or she was to produce. Whatever one said should be in keeping with the moral doctrines of Confucianism in the aspects of benevolence, righteousness, propriety, loyalty and fidelity, be both true in the expression of feelings and rhetoric in the wording, and be appropriate to the specific time, occasion and audience. Besides that, one must understand how to listen so that they could make the correct interpretation of the words they had received—the precondition for a smooth communication of language. With respect to this, after Confucius' advocation of the principle 'knowing words', Mencius further developed the ways of wording by proposing 'to know words by fostering the spirit of nobility' and 'to interpret others' points by reflecting on one's own mind', which was followed by Xun Zi's specific measure 'avoiding blindness of subjectivity and one-sidedness'.The third chapter is concerned with views of rhetoric aesthetics held by Confucius, Mencius and Xun Zi. The aim of rhetoric is to pursue the greatest appropriateness of expressions, which is reflected aesthetically by the beauty of language. Thus, the value of rhetoric is realized by the aesthetic value of words. The adept and appropriate use of various rhetorical methods, devices and techniques by the three great Confucianists made their works exhibit kind of beauty in the cadence of rhyming sounds, in the unevenness of tidy forms and in the richness of implicative meanings. The beauty of language in the rhyming sounds was reflected in the harmony and overlapping of syllables as well as the rhyme of the end sounds in verse lines. The beauty of language in the tidy forms is shown in the balancing use of antithesis, parallel, thimble, repetition and winding. The beauty of unevenness of language lies in the seeking of variation, the liveliness of novel shifts between lexical categories, the mixed position of long and short sentences, the combination of complete and loose sentences and the mixed use of normal and variant sentences. The beauty of language in the meaning is achieved through many kinds of rhetoric devices such as analogy, quotation, retorting, contrast, and progressive climaxing, which help to deepen and enrich the connotative meaning to a certain degree.The linguistic styles of the three Confucianists—Confucius, Mencius and Xun Zi—are discussed in Chapter Four. Generally speaking, their practice in the use of language fully represented their claims on rhetoric, which emphasized both form and content. On the other hand, their flexible use of language on different occasions in different areas to different communicators led them to display different styles of linguistic expressions characteristic of themselves respectively. Confucius' words were typical of colloquial language. With abundant sentiments, varying sounds and simple short sentences, they were brief, economic, plain and familiar on the one side, and intellectual, exact, graceful and gentle on the other. Mencius' words were mostly used for debate and featured by both colloquial familiarity and argumental peculiarity. Comparing with Confucius, he showed off as an elocutionist through his centered topic, precise and logical argumentation, and ebb-and-flow force in his language, which was characteristic of elaborated richness, ornate diction and vigorousness. As for Xun Zi, his language was typically a bookish one. The enough time and space available for him allowed him to refine his words with modulating of delicate sounds, prolific production, flexible sentence patterns and diverse figures of speech, which resulted in a style of elegant, clarified, profound, powerful, compact and noble kind.The topic to address in Chapter Five is about the characteristics and root causes of Confucius rhetoric. The Confucian rhetoric represented by Confucius, Mencius and Xun Zi was featured by its strong color of morality, its worldly and practical orientation, and its unity of form and content, for, in their views, wording and diction severed as tools and devices for the preaching of morality, run of political ruling together with self-cultivation. Such features were closely related with social and cultural background special for the pre-Qin Dynasty period. On the one hand, the instability of the social and political environments required one to produce eloquent words skillfully according to occasions, whether in the diplomacy or the personal conduct in society. On the other hand, the purpose of going-about persuasion and contention of schools of thought was to advocate their own views, which required advocators to adopt super skills of argumentation to amplify the effect of their persuasion and convince of their audience. The objective demands from the society, country and diplomacy turned out to be the subjective needs sought actively and consciously by those Confucianists. Therefore, the concept of rhetoric as a way of self-cultivation went along with their linguistic behaviors. What is more, the Confucianists also benefit themselves from their antecedents' ideas on rhetoric and the rhetoric phenomena in the previous records.The sixth chapter makes a comparison between the views on rhetoric held by Confucianists, Taoists, Mohists and Legalists. Contemporary with Confucianists, the other three schools also put forward their own insights in the field of rhetoric. Taoists, represented by Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi who admired nature, argued for backing to nature and truth and disapproved of florid words without fidelity. With Mo Zi as the representative and under the guidance of pragmaticism and utilitarianism, Mohists laid their emphasis on the role of rhetoric in debate and the preciseness of debating process, advocating that words must benefit regime and people. Legalists represented by Hanfei Zi who stressed the practicality and utility, placed more weight on the linguistic substance over decorations. The four schools of thought were both different and in common in terms of the understanding and treatment of relevant rhetoric issues, with the common points as follows: (1) They all saw the social function of wording and diction and thus all emphasize debating skills;(2) They were similar or in common in the goals and principles of wording and diction. Confucianists' 'words with content' and Taoists' 'words with purpose' are different expressions but with equal ends. Confucianists, Taoists and Mohists all stressed the indispensability of honesty and fidelity in wording and diction; (3) What they claimed on rhetoric were all discrepant to a certain extent from what they practiced. For example, Confucius emphasized linguistic modification but produced simple and familiar words. Lao Zi stressed nature, but always rhymed sounds and tidied up sentence patterns. Zhuang Zi words of romantic taste betrayed his principle of concentration on content and objection to linguistic modification Mo Zi and Hanfei Zi' focus on utility and practicality was inconsistent with their colorful application of kinds of rhetoric methods and techniques.The differences between them lied in: (1) They had widely different understandings of the relationship between rhetoric content and form. While Confucianists argued for the equal importance and organic unity of content and form, Taoists asserted naturalness and truth in expression based on the belief of 'words with content'. While Mohists insisted on the principle of 'content first, then form', legalists valued contents and reject to formal modification; (2) Confucianists and Taoists held different attributes towards wording and diction. The Confucianists' claim of 'cautious words' was totally different in nature from Taoists' 'cherishing words' or 'no words'; (3)The four schools all used a good many rhetoric devices like tuning sounds, selecting sentence patterns, embedding figures of speech and designing textual structures, but they brought out linguistic expressions of totally different styles. Such variation appeared not only between schools but between members of the same school. For instance, the styles of language were different between the three Confucianists—Confucius, Mencius and Xun Zi, which was also true of styles between Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi of the Taoist school.The current thesis concludes with the examination of the Confucian rhetoric in the -pre-Qin Dynasty period from modern perspectives. Comparing with the contemporary Doists, Moists and Legalists, Confucianists' equal stress on content and form was more comprehensive and conformed more to the aesthetic standards in Chinese people's mind. Their understanding on the relevant rhetoric issues touched on the whole wording process and constructed a relatively found system of thought on rhetoric. Centering on the Confucian doctrines of morality—benevolence, righteousness, propriety, loyalty and fidelity, Confucius, Mencius and Xun Zi were adept in use of rhetoric devices and techniques, which made their language simple, familiar as well as profound and precise, and which lent great support to the advocation and acceptation of their Confucian doctrines. Even if we examine those Confucianists' views on rhetoric today from the perspectives of modern rhetoric theory, we can still find the great theoretical and practical significance in many of them, such as "wording to raise honesty", "fidelity in feelings and eloquent in words", "speaking according to linguistic contest", "knowing words", "interpreting others' points by reflecting on one's own mind'. In view of this, we find that the people in the pre-Qin Dynasty period had already borne a quite clear concept of rhetoric in their minds and could be adept in the use of language. That is to say, their use of language was not entirely based on a kind of vague instinct, for they had already got a relatively clear purpose for their language performance.Certainly, obvious limitations existed, for it was unfair and un-objective for Confucianists to keep regulating and testing all the wording and diction against the doctrines of propriety or righteousness. However, in the unstable and unsecured Spring-Autumn and Warring States Period, it was natural and understandable for them to set up those doctrines as criteria of diction out of the needs of saving the deteriorating ethics and keeping propriety and kingly way. So the limitations and shortcomings were inevitable and tolerable. All in all, the merits overweight shortcomings.