The Comparison Of Discourse Strategies Between Chinese And Western Public Discourse From A Rhetoric Perspective

To understand the role language plays in public life and social process in general, we need first a thorough understanding of how linguistic knowledge and social factors interact in the process of discourse interpretation. Academic circles have witnessed the rise of researches on discourse analysis. The study on rhetoric, though almost shadowed by that of discourse analysis, is still generally held as a study to which discourse analysis closely pertains. To make clear what rhetoric is plays a key role in enriching our knowledge on discourse analysis. This paper tries to compare English and Chinese public discourse strategies from a rhetorical perspective.Ours is an age of information explosion as a result of rapid development of information technology. Network, taken as a new form of public sphere, attracts more and more participants. As a result, network language with distinct features catches the eye of the public and many scholars. Thus, network opens another door for linguists as it provides a new kind of linguistic resource to tackle the interrelationship between language and social, historical and cultural factors.This paper mainly aims to enhance people’s understanding of the rhetoric of English and Chinese and therefore their cultures by comparing the discourse strategies of the posts on western and Chinese message boards. The result shows that slight difference lies between western and Chinese preference of artistic modes of rhetoric (logos, ethos, and pathos), which differs from the previous views that English people is more logic than Chinese and Chinese people is more hot-headed when debating or persuading, etc. Besides, English people is better than Chinese people in using rhetoric devices.