From 15:00 to 16:30 p.m. on May 26, Southeast University School of Foreign Languages Professor Liu Donghong delivered a lecture to SFL faculty and students at the “Light of Reason” Academic Auditorium (virtual) entitled “Deduction, induction and others--A study of the paragraph features of argumentative essays by Chinese students”. The lecture was jointly hosted by the School of Foreign Languages and Jiangsu University Institute of Discourse, Argumentation and Global Communication”. SFL Dean Professor Li Chongyue presided over the lecture. More than 70 faculty members and graduate students of the School of Foreign Languages attended the meeting and Q&A session.
Professor Liu pointed out in his lecture that in the field of writing rhetoric, both Chinese and foreign scholars focus their attention on features of textual rhetoric like deduction and induction, but controversy often arises in their research results out of their different understanding of deduction and induction. Through illustrations, Professor Liu clarified the many misconceptions about deduction and induction in the minds of both professionals and laymen. In order to help the audience better understand deduction and induction, Professor Liu made a detailed introduction of her research on the paragraph features of argumentative essays by Chinese students. The key issues of her paper include: 1) Do Chinese students incline to employ deduction, induction or other devices in the composition of their Chinese and English essays? 2) Do the paragraphs of Chinese and English essays demonstrate the same rhetorical features? Professor Liu concluded in her research that the Chinese and English essays produced by the Chinese students rarely conform to the norms of modern English rhetoric. The primary cause for this phenomenon, according to Liu, mainly lies with the fundamental influence of Chinese culture that confines the cultural assimilation to the surface. The secondary cause may be that high school graduates in China seldom write in Chinese so that they will stop improving their textual rhetoric. The instruction of English rhetoric may prompt students to compare the Chinese and English rhetoric and make appropriate choices in their writing. Towards the end of the lecture, Professor Liu answered in detail questions raised by the audience concerning the sampling of texts and how to balance between rhetoric and reason in students’ composition.
“The Light of Reason” Academic Auditorium is one of the academic projects jointly launched by the School of Foreign Languages and Jiangsu University Institute of Discourse, Argumentation and Global Communication. It is mainly intended to invite a number of Chinese and foreign experts taking the lead both in academic research and teaching to give outstanding lectures to faculty and graduates of the School of Foreign Languages. In the meanwhile, it emphasizes strengthening academic exchanges and laying foundation for academic cooperation. Professor Liu’s is the first of a series of lectures to be delivered by the distinguished scholars invited. It is not only enlightening to faculty and graduates of the School in their future Chinese and English writing instruction and research, but also makes a good beginning for the future lectures.
Professor Liu Donghong is currently working for the School of Foreign Languages, Southeast University. She is a Fullbright senior researcher, a scholar devoted to America studies, and a standing director of “Commission on Writing Teaching and Research”. From 2009 to 2010, she was fully funded by the National Scholarship Council of China and worked as a visiting scholar in Pennsylvania State University. From 2016 to 2017, she worked as a visiting scholar in the English Department of Purdue University. Her research interests include “Rhetoric and Writing”, “Pragmatics” and “Second Language Acquisition”. She has published more than 60 papers and 5 monographs, and headed 2 projects sponsored by the National Social Sciences Fund, and 11 projects of the provincial/ministerial level or above.
(School of Foreign Languages & Jiangsu University Institute of Discourse, Argumentation and Global Communication)
Chinese
English