Rhetoric And Its Application In Court

Rhetoric begins in the west,western rhetoric first originates in the fifth century BC which is the ancient Greek period,and after research the academic regards Tisi and Coras as the founder of Western rhetoric.Subsequently,due to the needs of social debate,there appeared Golgi,Protigola as the representative of wise man who teach people debate and speech skills.The wise school regards rhetoric as a tool to persuade the audience,believing that as long as the audience is persuaded,then there is no need to care about meaning.Plato strongly criticizes this rhetoric which focuses only on technology and disregarding the content of rhetoric,advocates rhetoric shall use wisdom to lead people to the good soul.Aristotle argues that rhetoric should have the purpose of persuading others.In the period of ancient Rome,the western rhetoric develops and focuses on practicality and systematicity.Cicero transforms the research object of rhetoric to daily discourse,activity and phenomenon which is closely related to human life,Quintilesan regards rhetoric as a discipline of correct thinking and expression.In the middle Ages,Europe enters the "dark" period,in order to adapt to the current social and political environment,the rhetoric has no choice but do religious transformation,at this time,rhetoric becomes a tool to explain religious theory,having a strong religious color.After the Western Renaissance,the rational concept returns,emerging many outstanding rhetoric theories,such as Toulmin's argument theory,Burke's identity theory and Perelman's new rhetoric,rhetoric develops to a non-formal direction,paying attentions to the communication and cooperation with people,and showing a prosperous scene.At present,China has been turn from "acquaintance society" to "strangeness society",people's frequent contacts,caused disputes more complex and diverse,traditional moral values now cannot solve the disputes properly.At the same time,China's law is gradually progressing,the concept of law has been gradually popular,and resolving disputes through law has become people's consensus and choice.Rhetoric as a "tool" to persuade others and find out the facts,has been paid attention by majority of the judiciary,and been applied to judicial practice.In the court trial,the plaintiff,the defendant,lawyer,clerk,and judge etc.,all of them are the participants of this procedure.How to clarify the facts of the case and be just in a limited court hearing time is not only a theoretical issue but also a real problem.The court proceeding is one of the main areas for rhetoric,the persuasion theory,reasoning theory and argument theory in rhetoric can enhance the ability of the parties to persuade judges and enhance the ability of judges to find out facts.the application of rhetoric in our courts is not enough.As the socialist rule of law is gradually developing and perfecting,it put forward higher demands of the court trial.Therefore,here the author choose court trial which is the central part of judicial proceedings,combined with the investigation stage and the practical application of the debate stage from plaintiff,defendant,lawyers and judges in the court hearing,to explain the rhetoric as a "tool" has played an important role in court,to promote the application of rhetoric in court trial when in the process of China's legalization,which will have the methodological significance.