PartⅠ Multiple Choice ( 20 points)

 

1.      The theoretical foundation of the classical rhetoric is ____.

A.      Cheng Wang Dao  B. Aristotle  C. I.A. Rechard  D. Plato

 

2.  What is NOT the object of study that rhetoric concerned?

A. Effective power of linguistic symbols in communication

B. Persuasive skills to win audience

C. Using beautiful words in communication

D. Means by which human beings reach identity of views

 

3. “As the waves make towards the share, so do our minutes hasten to their end.”

    What is the tenor in this sentence?

A. the waves                      B. the shore  

C. our minutes hastens to their end     D. the waves make towards the shore

 

4. Which of the following sentence is not simile?

A. He had no more idea of art than a cow

B. I wondered lonely as a cloud

C. Her eyes were small blue circles of ice.

D. Joe fought like a lion.

 

5. Which of the following sentence is metaphor?

A. Justice is blind

B. He is a bookworm.

C. The boy is only skin and bones

D. He could hardly earn his everyday bread.

 

6. “The Young Moon lies on her back tonight as is her habit in the topics, and as I think, is suitable if not seemly foe a virgin?” what kind of figure of speech is used in this sentence?

A. Metaphor      B. Personification      C.  Simile         D. Analogy

 

7. Which of the following sentence uses metonymy?

 A. Great minds think alike.

B. The world is still ignorant of the fact.

C. He could hardly earn his everyday bread.

D. The remark was a shot at me.

 

8. Which is not the proper euphemism for certain words?

A. to go west—died

B. street walker—cleaner

C. the senior citizen—the old

D. domestic--servant

 

9. What is not the function of pleonasm?

A. emphasis                B. rearrange rhythms 

C. intensify meanings        D. exaggerate atmosphere

 

10.  “If we don’t hang together, we shall most assuredly hang separately.” What figure of speech is used in the sentence?

A. repetition       B. Pleonasm          C. Paradox       D. syllepsis

 

11.  What is the purpose of using oxymoron in “An atmosphere of dangerous calm could be felt throughout the mining region.”?

A. for sharp contrast          B. for emphasis   

C. for summarizing           D. for humor

 

12. Which part of the sentence can NOT be omitted?” Could you tell me when Sheila will be back I wanted to see her if I could?”

A. Could you tell me

B. will

C. I

D. her

 

13. Alliteration is used in ____.

A. Super Savings in the Skies

B. I kissed thee ere I killed thee

C. Little strokes fell great oaks

D. Large factories in China wish to be given a freer hand in the right to hire and fire.

 

14. Which of the following sentence is NOT irony?

A. This hard-working boy seldom reads more than an hour per week.

B. Cowards die many times before their death; the valiant never taste of death but once.

C. Conscience is the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.

D. It would be a fine thing indeed mot knowing what time it was in the morning,

 

15. What is the function of inversion in “Out they rush.”?

A. for emphasis        B. for exclamation  

C. for description      D. for balance of a sentence

 

16. T he following are correct features of word rhetoric except_____.

A. Choosing the word according to the communication situation, including proper topic, purpose and audiences. 

B. Using the words which can express the meaning precisely

C. Using the least words to express the whole meaning

D. Using a large number of descriptive words to make the speech vivid.

 

17. The requirements of sentence rhetoric are_____.

A. unity, coherence 

B. unity, coherence, emphasis

C. appropriateness, precise, clarity

D. clarity, unity, coherence, emphasis, diversity

 

18. In public place, if you want someone unfamiliar to help you shut the window, you can say_____.

A. Shut that window

B. It’s quiet cold in here, Jeeves.

C. Windows are to be kept closed.

D. I hope you don’t mind shutting the window.

 

19. What is the important rhetorical point of I.A. Richards?

A. The capacity of creating metaphor is a mark of genius which cannot be taught.

B. Language is naturally figurative.

C. Metaphor is a kind of language beautifier

D. Rhetoric can raise advices for people.

 

20. What is Not the feature of advertisement English?

A. Simple title

B. Simple sentence structure

C. easy to understand

D. frequently use question

 

Key:

1~5     BCCCC

6~10    BCBAD

11~15   BDABC

16~20   DDDBA

PartⅡ Gap Filling ( 20 points)

 

1.      English rhetoric may be subdivided into _________ and _________.

2.      Most of the figures of speech are based on __________ in image.

3.      Simile involves two things __________ and __________.

4.      When a metaphor has been so often used and becomes standardized as a way of referring to something, it is called a __________.

5.      Understatement is usually employed in two ways: by using _________, for example, “I shan’t be sorry when this is over.” And __________, as a bit, scarcely, hardly, kind of, etc.

6.      The difference between zeugma and syllepsis: in __________both (some more than two) of the collocations are grammatically correct while in __________there is at least one collocation which is improper.

7.      In parallelism the parallel parts must be identical in ________, relevant in ________, and sound in logic.

8.      __________ is a figure of speech in which a series of ideas are arranged in such a way that they go from the most important to the least important with steady weakening of emotion and tone.

9.      Innuendo is often referred to as ________ satire.  Ridicule is the ________ satire.

10.  The four types of sentences in English are: simple,   _______, ____________, ____________.

11.  The five forms of texts are narration, persuasion, description, _________ and __________.

12.  __________ is the beginning, continuing and end of Burke’s rhetorical theory.

 

Key:

1.      communicative rhetoric, aesthetic rhetoric

2.      resemblance

3.      primary term/tenor, secondary term/vehicle

4.      dead metaphor

5.      litotes, down toners

6.      syllesis, zeugma

7.      form, meaning

8.      anticlimax

9.      mild, sharpest

10.   compound, complex, compound-complex

11.  exposition, argumentation

12.  Motivation

 

Part Ⅲ T or F ( 20 points)

 

1.      Communicative rhetoric is inferior to aesthetic.

2.      The tenor and the vehicle involved in simile should be completely different

3.      Simile or metaphor usually uses comparison on one point of resemblance, while analogy draws a parallel between two unlike things that have several resemblance.

4.      The employment of hyperbole is based on the need of the content of a discourse and should not be congruous in tone with the content.

5.      Both euphemism and understatements can be used to glorify.

6.      “The bells! The bells!” is intermittent repetition.

7.      “More haste, less speed” is an oxymoron.

8.      Anticlimax is a technique of stating one’s thought in a descending order of significance or intensity.

9.      “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a fortune must be in want of a wife.” This is a periodic sentence.

10.  Every paragraph should have an obvious topic sentence.

 

Keys:

1~5    FTTFF

6~10   FFTTF

 

Part Ⅳ Analysis  (20 points)

Direction: Read the following passage and fulfill the following two tasks.

A)     Analysis the rhetorical devices and the functions in the passage

B)     Analysis the text features of the passage

 

HOW TO GROW OLD              　By Bertrand Russell

 

　1. In spite of the title, this article will really be on how not to grow old, which, at my time of life, is a much more important subject. My first advice would be to choose your ancestors carefully. Although both my parents died young, I have done well in this respect as regards my other ancestors. My maternal grandfather, it is true, was cut off in the flower of his youth at the age of sixty-seven, but my other three grandparents all lived to be over eighty. Of remoter ancestors I can only discover one who did not live to a great age, and he died of a disease which is now rare, namely, having his head cut off.

 

　2. A great grandmother of mine, who was a friend of Gibbon, lived to the age of ninety-two, and to her last day remained a terror to all her descendants. My maternal grandmother, after having nine children who survived, one who died in infancy, and many miscarriages, as soon as she became a widow, devoted herself to woman’s higher education. She was one of the founders of Girton College, and worked hard at opening the medical profession to women. She used to relate how she met in Italy an elderly gentleman who was looking very sad. She inquired the cause of his melancholy and he said that he had just parted from his two grandchildren. “Good gracious”, she exclaimed, “I have seventy-two grandchildren, and if I were sad each time I parted from one of them, I should have a dismal existence!” “Madre snaturale,” he replied. But speaking as one of the seventy-two, I prefer her recipe. After the age of eighty she found she had some difficulty in getting to sleep, so she habitually spent the hours from midnight to 3 a.m. in reading popular science. I do not believe that she ever had time to notice that she was growing old. This, I think, is　　proper recipe for remaining young. If you have wide and keen interests and activities in which you can still be effective, you will have no reason to think about the merely statistical fact of the number of years you have already lived, still less of the probable brevity of you future.

 

3. As regards health I have nothing useful to say since I have little experience of illness. I eat and drink whatever I like, and sleep when I cannot keep awake. I never do anything whatever on the ground that it is good for health, though in actual fact the things I like doing are mostly wholesome.

 

4. Psychologically there are two dangers to be guarded against in old age. One of these is undue absorption in the past. It does not do to live in memories, in regrets for the good old days, or in sadness about friends who are dead. One’s thoughts must be directed to the future and to things about which there is something to be done. This is not always easy: one’s own past is gradually increasing weight. It is easy to think to oneself that one’s emotions used to be more vivid than they are, and one’s mind keener. If this is true it should be forgotten, and if it is forgotten it will probably not be true.

 

　5. The other thing to be avoided is clinging to youth in the hope of sucking vigor from its vitality. When your children are grown up they want to live their own lives, and if you continue to be as interested in them as you were when they were young, you are likely to become a burden to them, unless they are unusually callous. I do not mean that one should be without interest in them, but one’s interest should be contemplative and, if possible, philanthropic, but not unduly emotional. Animals become indifferent to their young as soon as their young can look after themselves, but human beings, owing to the length of infancy, find this difficult.

 

　6. I think that a successful old age is easiest for those who have strong impersonal interests involving appropriate activities. It is in this sphere that long experience is really fruitful, and it is in this sphere that the wisdom born of experience can be exercised without being oppressive. It is no use telling grown-up children not to make mistakes, both because they will not believe you, and because mistakes are an essential part of education. But if you are one of those who are incapable of impersonal interests, you may find that your life will be empty unless you concern yourself with you children and grandchildren. In that case you must realize that while you can still render them material services, such as making them an allowance or knitting them jumpers, you must not expect that they will enjoy your company.

 

　7. Some old people are oppressed by the fear of death. In the young there is a justification for this feeling. Young men who have reason to fear that they will be killed in battle may justifiably feel bitter in the thought that they have been cheated of the best things that life has to offer. But in an old man who has known human joys and sorrows, and has achieved whatever work it was in him to do, the fear of death is somewhat abject and ignoble. The best way to overcome it – so at least it seems to me – is to make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river – small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being. The man who, in old age, can see his life in this way, will not suffer from the fear of death, since the things he cares for will continue. And if, with the decay of vitality, weariness increases, the thought of rest will not be unwelcome. I should wish to die while still at work, knowing that others will carry on what I can no longer do and content in the thought that what was possible has been done.

 

Keys:

A)     rhetorical devices and the functions:

1.      Metaphor: vivid, easy to understand

“My maternal grandfather, it is true, was cut off in the flower of his youth at the age of sixty-seven”

“This, I think, is proper recipe for remaining young.”

“the walls of the ego”

2.      Analogy: make the explanation interesting and impressive

“An individual human existence should be like a river – small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being.”—compare individual life with river

3.      Irony:

The title “HOW TO GROW OLD”—the main purpose is to tell people how not to grow old.

“My first advice would be to choose your ancestors carefully.”

4.      Personification: endow things or abstractions with personality which makes the description more interesting and vivid

 “sucking vigor from its vitality”

“they have been cheated of the best things that life has to offer”

5.      Euphemism: for courtesy

“Cut off” –died

“With the decay of vitality, weariness increases, the thought of rest will not be unwelcome.”—death

6.      Inversion: for the balance of sentence.

             “Of remoter ancestors I can only discover one who did not live to a great age.”

7.      Parallelism: for emphasis

“It does not do to live in memories, in regrets for the good old days, or in sadness about friends who are dead.”

8.      Metonymy:

 “She habitually spent the hours from midnight to 3 a.m. in reading popular science.”—science refers to science book or material about science.

 

B)     text features:

1.      This is an exposition.

2.      In a light and humorous style, the author discusses two topics: How to keep oneself psychologically young and how to perceive death in one’s old age.

The author’s advices in solving the two problems: 1. to have wide and keen interests and activities. 2. to content with what has been accomplished and to develop some strong impersonal interests involving appropriate activities.

Paragraph 1 to 3 points out the secrets of keeping healthy and living a long life and paragraph 4-6 tell us the right way to perceive death.

3.      This essay uses many examples to support the author’s points. For example, in the second paragraph, the author applies the example of his grandmother who lived a long life to tell us the importance of keeping a wide interest. These examples used here make the explanation clear and the author’s point persuasive. Besides, these examples also make the ideas easier to understand, as people combine the abstract concept with some concrete situations.

In the last paragraph, the author makes a comparison between the youth and the old to show that for the young they still have reason to feel fear to death but for the old there is no reason for fearing death.

 

Rhetoric

一．  Multiple Choice(20%)

1.       It is generally held that the history of western rhetoric is divided into six phases, which one of the followings is not one of the six phases?--------------------------------------------------------------------------------(C)

A.      Classical rhetoric

B.      Rhetoric in the Middle Ages

C.      Rhetoric in the 20^th Centry

D.      Rhetoric in the Renaissance

2.       The master of modern rhetoric is-------------------------------------------------(A)

A.      Mr. Chen Wangdao

B.      Leonard Cox

C.      Aristotle

D.      J.J. Murphy

3.       A simile is the most frequently used rhetorical device. It can be divided into

three kinds. Which one of the followings is not one of the three kinds?----(D)

A.      Descriptive

B.      Illustrative

C.      Illuminative

D.      Narrative

4.       (B) is a certain likeness in two things that are different in other ways, a

Similarity in function but not in origin.

A.      Metaphor

B.      Analogy

C.      Simile

D.      Hyperbole

5.       Phrases as “sweet voice”, “icy look”, “sour remark”, “noisy color” use (A)

as its figure of speech.

A.      Synaesthesia

B.      Personification

C.      Metaphor

D.      Simile

6.       Great minds think alike. This sentence uses (C) as its figure of speech.

A.      Hyperbole

B.      Paradox

C.      Synecdoche

D.      Irony

7.       (A) serves as the euphemism for women’s underclothes.

A.      unmentionables

B.      shorts

C.      underclothes

D.      underwear

8.       There are four levels in English rhetorical activities. Which one of the

followings is not one of them.-------------------------------------------------(A)   

A.  content

       B.  sentence

       C.  paragraph

       D.  text

9.  There are three key points in vocabulary rhetoric. Which one of the

    followings is not one of them?---------------------------------------------------(D)

A.         Appropriateness

B.         Precision

C.         Brevity

D.         Elegance

10.Which one of the followings is the representative work of I.A. Richards-(A)

A.       The Philosophy of Rhetoric

B.       Rhetoric

C.       Philosophy

D.       Rhetorical Philsophy

 

二．  Blank Filling(20%)  

1.       The first book on rhetoric in English appeared in 1524. It was written by___(Leonard Cox)

2.       Classical rhetoric was not a unified system and it was mainly concerned with the study of ___(human tradition) with Aristotle’s Rhetoric as its theoretical foundation.

3.       Present-day Western rhetoric consists of two sub-branches, namely, rhetoric and ___(stylistics)

4.       A ___(simile) is a figure of speech in which two quite different things are compared because they appear to be similar in at least one characteristic.

5.       All metaphors and similes are based on ___(analogy)

6.       ___(Synecdoche) is a figure in which a word literally denoting a part——usually an important part——is substituted for the whole; or the whole for a part, or a specific word is used to stand for abstract one or vice versa.

7.       ___(Hyperbole) is a figure of speech which deliberately exaggerates the truth.

8.       The fair breeze blew the white foam flew,

The furrow followed free;

We were the first that ever burst

Into that silent sea.

                          ——T.S. Coleridge: Rime of the Ancient Mariner

In this example, the author uses ___(alliteration) as its figure of speech.

9.       ___(I.A. Richards) is the author of the Philosophy of Rhetoric.

10.   The relationship between symbol and object is called ___(conventionality) 

 

三．T or F(20%)

1. Communicative rhetoric is inferior to aesthetic rhetoric.(F)

2. Comparative words as “like”, “as”, “as if” are introduced in metaphor.(F)

3. From metaphor derive several kinds of figures such as sustained metaphor, extended metaphor, dead metaphor and mixed metaphor.(T)

4. Hyperbole is the opposite of understatement. (T)

5. A loose sentence is one that saves its main clause to the end. (F)

6. Communicative rhetoric lays particular stress on lexical appropriateness, structural meticulousness and contextual accuracy. (F)

7. Classical rhetoric is the theoretical source of western rhetoric. (T)

8. “He was a lion in the battle”. This sentence uses simile as its figure of speech. (F)

9. Children are the flowers of the motherland. In this sentence, “children” is tenor and “flowers” is vehicle. (T)

10.Aristotole concluded that the study of rhetoric is about: purpose, audience, thought process, argument, arrangement and style.(T)?

 

四．Analysis(20%)

1.       It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a fortune must be in want of a wife.——J. Austen: Pride and Prejudice.

Q: What figure of speech is introduced by the author? Please analyze the function of the figure of speech.

A: Periodic sentence.

At the first sight, the readers may think the author will declare in earnest a universal truth, but at the end of the sentence, they find the so-called “a truth univerally acknowledged” is only a vulgar one. The author successfully leads the readers’ expectancy to the peak and the last word lowers this expectancy to the bottom. The sharp contrast produces a satirical and memorable effect, giving the readers much food for thought. The periodic sentence suspends the meaning till the close of the sentence, making the ironic truth more impressive.

 

2.       And I said, “No thanks, I’ll do it myself.” And I stalked past her and she wanted me to stop and I didn’t say goodbye to her either----just walked out without saying anything. I didn’t want to have it drycleaned as I know what happened when I took V-shirt to be drycleaned. I’d only worn it a few times and it was a bit dirty so I thought I’ll pay to have it drycleaned because that’ll keep it looking new longer----I won’t wash it the first time. So I took it along and when I got it back it wouldn’t fit me. They’d washed it and it’d shrunk. Talk about a tight grey shirt. It was so tight I couldn’t wear it.

Q: Please analyze the text features of this passage/

A: The passage uses everyday conversational English. It’s composed of many simple sentences and rarely uses complicated clauses. “And” and “so” are frequently used. The sentences are loosely connceted with each other. The development of the passage doesn’t firmly follow the logic very much. So everyday conversational English is a little bit informal, loose, casual.

 

五．Questions(20%)

   1. Please note the difference between euphemism and understatement

   A: Euphemisms have relatively set expressions and are used to avoid taboo or offense out of courtesy, whereas understatements have no set expressions and are used in a wider range.

 

2. What’s hyperbole? Please list one or two examples of hyperbole with their respective counterparts in plain language.

A: Hyperbole is a figure of speech which deliberately exaggerates the truth. It is often used to express one’s strong feeling or violent emotions by remarkable imagination and literary extravagance, for the effect of strong impression, humor, sarcasm, irony, etc.

For example: 1) I haven’t seen you for ages.

             I haven’t seen you for a long time.

           2) I was scared to death.

             I was greatly scared.

           3)I’d give the world to see her.

             I want to see her very much.

 

 

 

 

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