A Study Of Western Rhetoric In China's College English Education

Rhetoric is everywhere in our life. It is not too off the mark to say that a West without rhetoric is beyond imagination. Rhetoric provides the basic concepts, general direction and useful methods for all forms of discursive practices, including journalism, advertising, and public relations. And the value and importance of this art to the running of a country or the enhancing of its soft power can never be exaggerated. Because of rhetoric's deep involvement in all aspects of social life in the West, any non-Western people who need to interact with the Westerners must also grasp the norms of rhetoric so as to critically understand what they say and effectively make ourselves heard. However, it has not received its deserved attention in China so far, and it has yet to be incorporated into China's college English education.This paper first introduces and sorts out the definitions and the historical development of rhetoric in the West. Then it discusses rhetoric's close relationship to the Western society in general and to the West's tradition of education in particular. This discussion is followed by a study of Wayne C. Booth's research on rhetoric and education, aiming to get some helpful ideas for considering the development in Chinese college English education. In the following chapter, it analyses the structure of the National English Syllabus for Non-English-Major undergraduates and the sorry situation of students'English level, and then offers some tentative yet practical suggestion on how to integrate western rhetoric into Chinese College English Education.