Rhetoric In The United States
DISCUSS SOME OF THE WAYS IN WHICH PEOPLE VALUES AND ATTITUDES TOWARDS ENGLISH ARE EXPRESSED IN DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE WORLD.
My EMA investigates values and attitudes towards the persuasive power of rhetoric in the USA and values and attitudes to English language policy and education in China.
I have chosen these because I thought I would be interesting to investigate two different contexts in which English language has a totally different significance. What values and attitudes to English are prevalent in a country where English is native (USA) and in one where it is completely foreign (China)?
Attitudes and Values
I am going to define “attitude” and “value” and how they can be investigated.
Fishbein and Ajzen, cited in Page-Bucci (2003) …show more content…
Rhetoric in the USA.
According to the ancient Greeks, teaching rhetoric enabled individuals to express their ideas convincingly and persuade and influence others in the fields of politics and law (Cook, 2012, p. 229).
Little has changed these days. Due to the power that it holds, the Americans have promoted the study and use of rhetoric in high schools for various reasons that suit the American values based, among others on ‘achievement and materialism’ (Handbook for Foreign Students and Scholars, 1994-95).
The power of rhetoric is being used for advertising, for public relations (PR) and for personal persuasion and for other uses, in the USA (Cook, 2012, pp. 225-252).
Rhetoric uses a number of devices to achieve convincing results. It appeals to reason or logos, to inner feelings or pathos or appeals to the good reputation of the speaker or pathos (Cook, 2012, p. 233).
Apart from these strategies, rhetoric also uses linguistic features such as “rhetorical questions” which ‘simulates dialogue by taking interrogative form but does not expect response’ (Cook, 2012, p. 234). An example of this is a piece of the speech of Churchill in 1940 ‘You ask, what is our …show more content…
The favourable attitude of the Chinese government is also based on economic interest to attract foreign students from other countries thus generating great revenues: the universities of Fudan in Shanghai, Nanjing Medical University, Nantong, Sichuan, Soochow, and Sun Yat-sen in Guanzhou have reported that ‘more than 5000 international medical students’...are ‘studying through English across the country CUCA, cited in (Bolton & Graddol, 2012 pp. 3-9). The Government also is allowing foreign private language schools to teach English in China as in the case of ‘The Wall Street Institute based in Beijing’ (U214 DVD1).
Some of the ‘high achiever’ students want to improve their knowledge and proficiency further and they ‘go overseas for further education in the form of Master’s and PhD programmes in US and Europe Universities’ (Bolton & Graddol, 2012 pp. 3-9
My EMA investigates values and attitudes towards the persuasive power of rhetoric in the USA and values and attitudes to English language policy and education in China.
I have chosen these because I thought I would be interesting to investigate two different contexts in which English language has a totally different significance. What values and attitudes to English are prevalent in a country where English is native (USA) and in one where it is completely foreign (China)?
Attitudes and Values
I am going to define “attitude” and “value” and how they can be investigated.
Fishbein and Ajzen, cited in Page-Bucci (2003) …show more content…
Rhetoric in the USA.
According to the ancient Greeks, teaching rhetoric enabled individuals to express their ideas convincingly and persuade and influence others in the fields of politics and law (Cook, 2012, p. 229).
Little has changed these days. Due to the power that it holds, the Americans have promoted the study and use of rhetoric in high schools for various reasons that suit the American values based, among others on ‘achievement and materialism’ (Handbook for Foreign Students and Scholars, 1994-95).
The power of rhetoric is being used for advertising, for public relations (PR) and for personal persuasion and for other uses, in the USA (Cook, 2012, pp. 225-252).
Rhetoric uses a number of devices to achieve convincing results. It appeals to reason or logos, to inner feelings or pathos or appeals to the good reputation of the speaker or pathos (Cook, 2012, p. 233).
Apart from these strategies, rhetoric also uses linguistic features such as “rhetorical questions” which ‘simulates dialogue by taking interrogative form but does not expect response’ (Cook, 2012, p. 234). An example of this is a piece of the speech of Churchill in 1940 ‘You ask, what is our …show more content…
The favourable attitude of the Chinese government is also based on economic interest to attract foreign students from other countries thus generating great revenues: the universities of Fudan in Shanghai, Nanjing Medical University, Nantong, Sichuan, Soochow, and Sun Yat-sen in Guanzhou have reported that ‘more than 5000 international medical students’...are ‘studying through English across the country CUCA, cited in (Bolton & Graddol, 2012 pp. 3-9). The Government also is allowing foreign private language schools to teach English in China as in the case of ‘The Wall Street Institute based in Beijing’ (U214 DVD1).
Some of the ‘high achiever’ students want to improve their knowledge and proficiency further and they ‘go overseas for further education in the form of Master’s and PhD programmes in US and Europe Universities’ (Bolton & Graddol, 2012 pp. 3-9