英语修辞学Teachingmaterial3forSs.docVIP

Chapter 3 The 4 Levels of Rhetorical Devices Rhetoric involves choice of sounds and rhythm, words, sentence patterns, figures of speech, organization of paragraphs and composition, etc. This process can be broken down into four basic levels of options: Phonetic devices Lexical devices Syntactic devices Discoursal devices 3.1 Phonetic devices and prose rhythm 3.1.1 Introduction All languages have sound. Orators in ancient times knew how to use the sounds of their language for maximum rhetorical effect, and classical rhetoric had a number of sound devices based on the echoing or the rhyming of sounds. Modern English has inherited some of these devices. Speech has rhythm, and since prose is really speech in written form (with modifications), it has rhythm too. Native speakers of the language inherit this awareness of rhythm from young, from hearing stories read to them or told to them, and from hearing the rhythm of English spoken in its natural setting, just as Chinese children learn from young the rhythm of Chinese speech. A knowledge of some English phonetic devices, and of English prose rhythm is therefore helpful not only to students of EFL as writers, but also as readers of English prose, for only when they can read fluently with the proper rhythm prose of whatever kind can they write fluently and effectively, with an intuitive sense of rhythm of the written word. 3.1.2 Phonetic devices 1. General Remarks A. Phonetic qualities The phonetic qualities of vowels : 1. They are all voiced. 2. They may be long or short. 3. They may be spread or rounded. 4. They may be closed or open. 5. They may be lax or tense. 6. They (diphthongs, triphthongs) glide. The phonetic qualities of consonants : 1.? They may be voiced or voiceless. 2.??They may be nasal or non-nasal. 3. Some are stopped sounds, e.g. all the plosives. 4. Some are fricatives. 5. Some are affricates. 6. Some are liquids流音or glides, because they are produced with