Oxymoron Of The Opposition And Unity In Business English

Language is what people depend on for communication. But how should we use language to communicate in actual situations? People give different answers. Sometimes even some scholars offer opposite opinions, which puzzle learners and cause trouble to language teaching. To elucidate these confusing views, this paper, based on Leech rhetoric theory and a philosophic base of contradiction and unity, :proposes contradictory rhetoric, which means, in practical contexts people can use opposite aspects of contradictory rhetoric (such as clear and vague, direct and indirect expressions) flexibly to achieve their goals in communication. After analyzing quite a lot of contradictory phenomena in language use, the paper discusses the unity of the contradictory aspects of rhetoric and studies the factors which affect contradictory rhetoric. Finally after the analysis of the defects in the guidelines for business English correspondence the paper suggests using of contradictory rhetoric in guiding business English writing.