A Theory of Contemporary Rhetoric (23 page)

Related to the overall structural issues are the fact that the thesis, by its very nature as a
thesis
(a proposition, a set of ideas, an argument), needs to show that it is arguing a
position
. The position takes time to emerge: if it emerges early at all, as it does in scientific studies, it will be in the form of a
hypothesis
(a hypothetical proposition). Once established, the position will need to be defended, both in the thesis itself and in any oral examination that follows.

Second, each part of the thesis, however structured overall, needs to have a strong argumentational and critical flavor. Students from Europe and China often miss the fact that the introduction and literature review need to be driven by a skeptical intellectual attitude; the doctoral student is not expected to be complicit, but must look for ways in which he/she can find gaps in existing thinking and research and therefore exploit these gaps by adding to knowledge. Other related approaches include critique, the weighing up of one source against another, and the questioning of secondary sources by reference back to primary sources (and thus a re-interpretation of the particular argument presented). The methodological chapter(s), for example, can be given a critical dimension by comparison to other methodologies and methods that have worked or not worked, by drawing a distinction between the methodology chosen and the specific methods chosen within that methodology (and whether they mesh well together), by the interrogation of one method by another, by a precise account of the proposed nature of triangulation by time or method, and by a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the methods chosen.

Lastly, at a more micro level, argumentation must be embedded in the writing of the thesis at the level of the paragraph (or subtextual unit—see
Table 8.4
) and the sentence. Such micro argumentation can be superficially signaled in the use of connectives, such as “however,” “nevertheless,” “on the other hand,” and “despite,” each of which marks a turning point in the micro-argument. More importantly and more deeply, these surface signals are informed by the choreography of argument that is taking place in the mind of the writer as he/she composes the argument of the section or chapter.

The overall aim is to move beyond mere exposition and compliant thinking.

This particular small-scale study of six doctoral students' work situates itself within an overarching sub-section of rhetoric that we might term
multilingual rhetorical theory
, overlapping with
intercultural rhetorical theory
. So, although framing—explored in
chapter 7
—is the principal device via which such similarities and differences in practice can be analyzed, it is the multilingual and intercultural dimensions that give rhetoric a more varied and colorful range. Indeed, the singular term
rhetoric
has been reframed as
rhetorics
to indicate the pluralistic dimension. Like the debate on
literacy
and
literacies
, these are seen in the present book as simply the unifying (centrifugal) and pluralistic (centripetal) sides of the same phenomenon, so
rhetoric
, in all its cultural forms, continues to be used as the preferred term.

The key starting point in multilingual rhetorical theory is a point that is shared by rhetoric as a whole: it is not aligned to any particular language. This point is crucial, as we are not in the field of “English” studies, nor focusing on English as a second, foreign, additional, or world language. Rather, the interest for rhetoric is how language policy manifests in a globalized education context (the politics of language); how particular languages represent aspects of experience and how they culturally determine how its users experience the world; how languages combine in terms of code-mixing, code-switching, and code-sharing; how families and education systems make decisions about which languages to use for which purposes; and other aspects of comparative language study, including language learning (e.g., the function of “grammar” in foreign language learning). Intimately connected to language use are questions of identity and culture: how does an individual person define himself or herself in terms of language, dialect, and accent? How are identities negotiated, developed, changed, and consolidated? There are significant studies in the field (e.g., Cummins 1996; Block 2009), but the purpose of the present chapter is not to contribute to knowledge in those particular fields, but rather to step back and consider how a theory of rhetoric might contribute to clarification both within the field and in terms of its relation to other areas of cultural and linguistic study.

All languages can be characterized in terms of an interlocking and mutually dependent set of levels at which the language can be described. For example, in English, as in many other languages, there are (starting with the most general categories) issues of social and political context, individual concerns and motivations, and framings of various sizes and kinds that bear upon the construction of meaning between the rhetor and his/her audience. At the next level down, communication takes place in one or more modes and via one or more media. Those modes (note that we have already moved beyond “the English language” into international modes,
such as the still and moving visual image, sound, and spatial movement) and media determine the resultant levels at which further description takes place. Staying with the verbal mode for the moment, the situation, with all its factors, is reified in the substance of the text. The “text”—whether mono- or multi-modal—can be described and analyzed in terms of its coherence and cohesion, to borrow terms from Hallidayan linguistics. Subtextual elements such as paragraphs, sections, and stanzas can be determined, and “below” that level, the sentence or other mid-level unit of meaning can be described. This mid-level area is the field of syntax and syntactic studies in English. It is followed, further down, by subunits of the sentence such as the phrase and clause, and then by lexical (word) and sublexical levels: the morphological, phonemic, and phonetic levels, with their attendant relationship with letters on the graphophonemic plane.

A comparison between Mandarin and English is summarized in
Table 8.4
.

Table 8.4
Mandarin and English Comparisons

Level of Description	English	Mandarin/Putonghua	Comments
Above the level of language or any other mode of communication	Situated within a neo-liberal and post-Romantic set of democratic values	Situated within a neo-Marxist and pragmatic (possibly neo-Romantic) set of values	“Meaning” is constructed in the society through a set of shared values and a number of modes of communication
Immediate contexts	All social situations	All social situations
Whole text	“Texts” in the language can be oral as well as written, and usually contain other modes, at least implicitly. Genres are “text types.”	wen ti = genre, in writing or speech, e.g., xiao shuo = fiction, shi ge = poetry wen ben = text	Issues of cohesion and coherence in English and in Mandarin
Subtextual elements	Paragraphs, stanzas, sections, etc.	duan luo = paragraph zhangjie = stanza or section
The sentence	Studies in syntax	ju fa = syntax ju zi = Sentence	Studies in “grammar” in English are usually focusing purely on sentence grammar, i.e., syntax and parts of speech
Subsentential levels	Elements of the sentence, such as clauses, phrases, etc.	duan yu = clause, phrase
The word or character	The lexical level: studies in whole words, vocabulary acquisition, etc.	ci hui = vocabulary, consisting of characters	In Mandarin, a “word” could be made up from more than one character
Sublexical or character levels; the morphological level	Prefixes, root words, suffixes, and etymologies; grammatical subunits of words	bi hua = stroke zigen = root words zi = character	This is where the two languages are quite different, in that English is grapho-phonemic, based on the alphabet; Mandarin is ideographic.