Keywords: definition of rhetorical grammar essence
Rhetoric is regarded as the artistic processing of language and the best display of the writer's language magic. Grammar emphasizes not the modification and processing of language, but the rules and regularity of spoken language, which is about fluency or not. People always think that rhetoric and grammar are completely different. But at the same time, people do not deny the subtle connection between rhetoric and grammar. In this way, there are different views on the complex relationship between rhetoric and grammar, and everyone has their own views and conclusions. But on the whole, many scholars believe that rhetoric and grammar are essentially different.
To say the difference or connection between one thing and another, we should first start with their most basic information. This is also the first step of comparative study. Only by clarifying their basic concepts can we further discuss their essence and differences.
I. Definition of Rhetoric
Not everyone agrees with rhetoric. Plato made such an attack on rhetoric. In his view, rhetoric is "the equivalent of cooking". Moreover, he thinks rhetoric is just something that ignores content and even embellishes it. This may also be related to Plato's environment and social background at that time, but today, people's research on rhetoric is endless. Aristotle's definition of rhetoric is affirmative. In his view, "1, rhetoric is the counterpart of dialectics. 2. Rhetoric can be defined as the function of seeking all available persuasion means in a specific situation. Rhetoric is a branch of dialectics and ethics. " From the three definitions of rhetoric given by Aristotle, we can see that he tried to establish a connection between rhetoric and philosophy, and pointed out that the purpose of rhetoric is to convince others, and it is in a certain language environment. Finally, he made a general summary of rhetorical expressions.
Besides Aristotle, many people have also defined rhetoric.
Burke, the most important American rhetorician in the 20th century, pointed out: "The basic function of rhetoric is that people use words to form opinions or induce others to act ... A basic function of rhetoric based on language itself ... is to use language as a symbolic means to induce cooperation in animals that can respond to symbols naturally." Judging from Burke's definition of rhetoric, rhetoric has a strong sociality, which implies the cooperative attitude between language symbols and users. In addition, this definition also shows that rhetoric is a kind of knowledge of symbolic behavior that induces action. Moreover, this definition involves not only oral language, but also written language.
In addition, the famous scholar Mr. Chen Wangdao once pointed out: "Rhetoric is the study of the beautiful expression of thoughts and feelings in articles." It can be seen that the greatest function of rhetoric lies in how people use language flexibly and correctly. Make the language presented to readers have beautiful characteristics.
Furthermore, Mr. Wang Li also said in his book Rhetoric: "Rhetoric is a subject that studies the rhetoric of words to increase beauty and goodness." It is not difficult to see from this definition that the author classifies rhetoric as an artistic application in terms of its spiritual characteristics. There is no distinction between good and bad language, and rhetoric makes language unique in beauty and goodness.
In addition to these different definitions of rhetoric, many of our linguistics and modern Chinese textbooks also describe rhetoric. In the Introduction to Modern Chinese edited by Mr. Luo Xiaosuo, we realize that rhetoric is a science that studies and uses language and language expression methods and techniques in order to enhance the expression effect of language and adapt to specific contexts.
Generally speaking, rhetoric is a science that studies the use of rhetoric, that is, how to use language expression skills more appropriately in a specific context.
Second, the definition of grammar.
The first impression of grammar is rigorous science. But also the idea of learning grammatical structure. For the definition of grammar, most of the differences are not great, and the understanding is relatively consistent. Here are some examples of grammatical definitions.
Modern Chinese, edited by Huang Borong and Liao Xudong, defines grammar as the science of studying and describing grammatical rules, which is an understanding and explanation of the objective grammatical system. It is pointed out that grammar is a regular discipline and a description of objective things. So grammar research is to find out the grammar rules used in language.
Secondly, the definition of grammar in Introduction to Linguistics, edited by Wang Yuguang and Wang, is that grammar is a science that studies the structural laws of language. In addition, grammar is classified from different angles.
In addition, other authors have similar definitions of grammar. Like "grammar is a science that takes grammar as the research object." Or "grammar is to study how to define grammatical units indirectly." Wait a minute.
Grammar is such a science that studies the laws of language structure. Some people think that grammar is the norm of correct writing and speaking, and grammar is a set of rules for studying language from the inside. Grammar is such a framework, a hard and fast rule.
If grammar teaches people how to speak, then rhetoric teaches people how to speak better. If grammar is rational, then rhetoric is subjective. From their definitions, we can see that rhetoric and grammar are essentially different.
Second, the essential difference between rhetoric and grammar
They belong to different categories.
Macroscopically, rhetoric and grammar belong to different categories. Rhetoric belongs to external linguistics, which is a method or skill to study language expression in a specific environment. On the other hand, grammar studies language from the inside. For example, the study of morphology and syntax covers the formation and morphological changes of various words, as well as the study of the structural laws of phrases and sentences. For example:
Truth always sneaks into the heart of a brave man and shows him the magic of wisdom.
From the rhetorical point of view, the above sentences are the author's good use of personification. Among them, he personified the abstract concept "truth" and attached human actions to it, thus making his writing vivid and his image more vivid. However, from the perspective of grammar, we will find that this sentence does not conform to the grammatical norms. "Truth" is just an abstract concept. How can it "walk"? Moreover, "showing the magic of wisdom" shows that rhetoric and grammar study language from different angles and aspects. Rhetoric is an expression that puts words, phrases or sentences in a certain language environment and gives people perceptual knowledge. Instead of studying the words or phrases themselves.
At this point, the difference between rhetoric and grammar is obvious.
(2) Different departments.
From the microscopic point of view, their research directions are different, and their angles of entry are also different. If grammar is about how to put words correctly and clearly, then rhetoric is about how to put words more tactfully. Therefore, rhetoric belongs to the art department and grammar belongs to the science department.