A Literature Review of Rhetorical Criticism Research in the Past Two Decades

Rhetorical criticism enjoys a long history of studies, and the researchin this field upsurged at the end of 20th century and the beginning of 21st century.In the article, the author aims to investigate the developmental trends in this filedat home and abroad by a literature review of the studies in the past two decades.It has been proved in the research that domestic studies can be classified into fourtypes—introducing theories of western rhetorical criticism in the U.S., building newmodels of western rhetorical criticism, comparing theories of Chinese and Westernrhetorical criticism, and applying western rhetorical criticism into domestic use; whilestudies abroad in this field, especially in the U. S., keep deepening and upgrading itstheories on the basis of its profundity, and enlarging its research scope. A literaturereview of western rhetorical criticism in the past two decades can provide someacademic nutrition to domestic research and deliver certain implicational meaningto it. In the future, more studies should be carried out to systematize the theory ofwestern rhetorical criticism and to incorporate the updated theory into the analysis ofrhetorical practice in our country, thus expressing the strong interpretative power ofwestern rhetorical criticism.