修辞学研究中的几个理论问题——与王希杰先生商榷

A Discussion of Some Rhetorical Concepts with Wang Xi-jie

本文以《王希杰修辞学论集》中的一些矛盾观点为话题,就修辞和修辞学中的修辞学、阶级性、编码、解码、接受修辞、语言美、言语美、得体性和有效性等一些基本概念阐述个人看法,以期引起修辞学界的进一步关注和探讨。

Occasioned by a principled disagreement with some of Wang Xi-jie’s published viewpoints on rhetoric, this paper undertakes to clarify the meaning of key concepts and topics in rhetorical studies, such as rhetorical action, class and rhetoric, encoding/decoding, reception rhetoric, aesthetic dimension of language and speech, appropriateness, and effectiveness. These are terms as crucial to a general understanding of rhetoric as they remain contentious and confusing. Their clarification in this paper, though necessarily tentative, would help to provoke much-needed discussions among rhetoricians and to bring to a sharper focus many of the central issues in the field.