Investigating Prefaces Of English Academic Monographs:A Rhetorical Perspective

Preface,as an essential part of academic monographs,not only constitutes the structure,but also contributes greatly to the promotion and acceptance of academic books.Such promotion aims to persuade potential readers to buy the books.However,limited by the author-identity and the academic setting,authors cannot praise their own research too much in prefaces.Otherwise,they will violate the objective principle of academic writing and seem conceited.Thus,authors have to apply various rhetorical strategies in prefaces to achieve the goal of persuasion.This has been noticed by many scholars.Yet,few of them have conducted in-depth studies on the persuasive function of prefaces.On the other hand,Aristotle,the influential representative of the classical rhetoric,summarizes three modes of persuasion in his rhetorical appeal theory that has great explanatory power over persuasive discourses:logos,ethos,and pathos.The present study investigates the rhetorical strategies applied by authors in prefaces from logos,ethos,pathos based on the rhetorical appeal theory.Our data collected are 30 prefaces of English academic monographs published by either Springer or Palgrave Macmillan from 2011 to 2015.Meanwhile,every 10 pieces of prefaces are within the field of a certain subject.The subjects chosen include linguistics as the representative of humanities,economics of social sciences,and astronomy of natural sciences.This research adopts both the qualitative approach and the quantitative approach.The qualitative approach is the major one with the quantitative approach as a supplement in examining linguistic realization.Our research findings include:(1)Authors apply rich rhetorical strategies in prefaces appealing to logos,ethos and pathos.(2)There are six major strategies appealing to logos: stating significance,presenting new ideas,explaining concepts,using data and examples,marking logical relations,and raising questions.Among them,presenting new ideas,marking logicalrelations and raising questions are common ones while the other three have disciplinary differences.(3)As to ethos,we also find six rhetorical strategies: describing research process,introducing experiences,adding confirmation and support,serving readers,highlighting the author,and selecting modality.And disciplinary differences mainly exist in adding confirmation and support,serving readers and selecting modality.(4)In the appeal to pathos,authors usually apply five kinds of strategies.They are expressing gratitude,inserting evaluations,employing boosters and downers,creating familiarity by metaphors,and showing the inconceivable through exclamatory sentences.The subjects differ from each other in inserting evaluations and using metaphors.(5)Major disciplinary differences in prefaces indicate that authors have different preferences in applying some rhetorical strategies: linguists would like to connect with daily life,use less data and add support through quotations;economists prefer to apply the modal operator would of median value and insert more evaluative expressions;astronomers tend to elicit significance through big events,flatter readers,explain concepts,use more data and metaphors but less quotations.Further,such differences are mainly because of differences in the characteristics of subjects.Based on Aristotle’s rhetorical appeal theory,we investigate how authors persuade readers by appealing to logos,ethos and pathos.Our research significance lies in three aspects.First,the research confirms the effectiveness of the rhetorical appeal theory in analyzing persuasive discourses.Second,it enlarges the research scope of preface studies.Third,it offers guidance for authors to write more persuasive prefaces.