Definition:
The practice and study of persuasive discourse in China. See also:
Examples and Observations:
- "The paradigm of one-to-one persuasion received much attention from the Legalist Han-fei-tzu (c.280-233 BCE), who prescribed in-depth analysis of the audience, wholesale adaptation to its idiosyncrasies, and building long-term relationships of trust. . . .
"The early Confucian approach to suasion (from the fifth to third centuries BCE) also recommends adaptation, but along socially regulated dimensions such as the status of both speaker and audience, the receptivity of the listener, the subject matter, and the occasion. But underlying all these gradations and distinctions was a deep commitment to the ethical dimension of human life. . . .
"Much work remains to be done on the Chinese rhetorical tradition, and there is not yet a comprehensive book-length overview."
(Mary M. Garrett, "Chinese Rhetoric." Encyclopedia of Rhetoric, ed. Thomas O. Sloane. Oxford Univ. Press, 2001) - "Post-Mao feminist rhetoric features two characteristics--reclaiming femininity and recovering the human character. Reasserting femininity functions as an emotional appeal to the audience that can share the writers' outcry against the officially encouraged desexualization of women and can understand the problems Chinese women encounter. Meanwhile, they regard women's problems as part of the human issues in China. Therefore, post-Mao female writing does not limit itself to concerns about women's issues but embraces authors' worries about undervalued human life at large."
(Hui Wu, "The Alternative Feminist Discourse of Post-Mao Chinese Writers: A Perspective From the Rhetorical Situation." Alternative Rhetorics: Challenges to the Rhetorical Tradition, eds. Laura Gray-Rosendale and Sibylle Gruber. State University of New York Press, 2001)
