Study Of Rhetorical Question And Its Teaching Methods In TCFL Listening

Rhetorical question is a very common use as well as very complicated kind of sentences in modern Chinese. Just because of its distinctiveness, rhetorical question has become one of those difficulties in the course of TCFL (Teaching Chinese as a Second language), both in teaching and learning. According to Hu, Yushu and Fan, Xiao’s three plane theory of syntactic analysis, this paper made a comparison, analysis and presentation about rhetorical question’s syntax, semantics and pragmatics in modern Chinese. In addition, it offers suggestions about the methods which should be used in TCFL.This paper is divided into six parts:Introduction part: states the purpose and significance of this paper and also introduce this paper’s research methods and procedure.Second part is the summary of available academic documents about the definition of rhetorical question. After reviewing the history of study of rhetorical question, this paper generalizes and classify the definitions or the explanation of rhetorical question from three angles: category, pragmatics and rhetoric. Therefore, a conclusion can be made that the definition of rhetorical question must meet three conditions, rhetorical question is a form of question, rhetorical question can aggravate the tone and the pragmatics value of rhetorical question is diversified.Third part is to analyze the types of rhetorical question’s sentence structure. Apart from studying several scholar’s classifications and summing up those classifications, the author presents her own way of classification by analyzing all kinds of structures.The fourth part is about the semantics analysis of rhetorical question. Some scholars now hold that "accent, intonation, context " which influence rhetorical question’s pragmatics value and ’rhetorical question’s semantics conditions" are some aspects of the rhetorical question’s semantics analysis. At present, the "negative theory" and the "tacitness. dominance theory" are most popular in linguistic circle. This paper, starting from the study of the relationship of semantics and pragmatics, considers these two factors have mutual influence and restrict.Rhetorical question’s semantics is analyzed in the fifth part. Nowadays, although most scholars and researchers affirm the importance of context to rhetorical question’s semantics, there still are some scholars who offer more detailed theory. For example, the intonation theory, the context theory, etc. Thus, the author presents her own way of classification and thinks that context, accent, intonation and model adverbs can all have influence on rhetorical question’s semantics. This paper will elaborate these four factors individually.The sixth part discusses the teaching methods of rhetorical question in TCFL listening. This paper first analyzes the difficulties during the course of foreign students’ learning rhetorical question in the elementary stage. Those difficulties lie in communication, teaching, understanding and exercise and haven’t been well recognized. In the following, this paper will do an analysis of HSK outline and textbooks. At last, it offers some solutions and suggestions to rhetorical question’s teaching in listening of elementary stage. This paper recommends teaching method which combines both textbook and class teaching. In this way, foreign students can use rhetorical question more precise and more freely in communication.