公共修辞:话语实践中的公共利益及其修辞建构

Public Rhetoric:Public Interest and Its Rhetorical Construction in Discursive Practice

作为一种修辞形式,公共修辞旨在回应修辞实践中的公共性问题,其主要特点是以公共利益为修辞目的,通过对文本或话语的策略性挖掘、表征、征用与转换,维护公共空间的协商性、批判性与对话性。社会舆论场域中的公共性主要体现在公共议题、公共话语、公共价值三个维度,相应地也就形成了公共修辞的三重内涵:一是公共议题的争议性呈现,即通过对事实的可见性生产,促使公共空间的问题与矛盾形成,以此激活公共空间的批判功能;二是公共话语的知识性建构,即在知识维度上构建出一种“介于之间”(in-between)的话语形式,其主要修辞策略是赋予事物认知以知识逻辑;三是公共价值的对话性倡导,即在文化维度上促进不同主体之间的对话与和解,从而建立公共空间理性交往的认同基础与共识基石。由于公共修辞的劝服或对话功能服务于公共利益取向,其主要“应用场景”是公共传播领域。

Public rhetoric as an important form of rhetoric focuses on public issues in practice,with its aims of maintaining public interest and the negotiability,critique and dialogicality in public space by strategically exploring,representing,expropriating and transforming texts or discourses.Publicity in the arenas of social opinions is reflected in the dimensions of public issues,discourses and values,and accordingly forms the connotations of public rhetoric as follows:Firstly,the controversial presentation of public issues,which initiates the critical function of public space by revealing and producing the visibility of facts and conflicts within the space;Secondly,the knowledge construction of public discourses,which builds a discourse form of“in-between”with the rhetoric strategy of logically integrating people’s cognition with knowledge;Thirdly,the consistent promotion of dialogicality on public values,which helps to make dialogues and achieve conciliation between subjects and therefore enhances the cognition and common sense in rational public communication.Public communication,in this sense,is taken as the production field of public rhetoric to fulfil the persuasive or dialogical function of the latter.