摘 要

Ted演讲是目前世界上影响力最大的演讲平台，近年来越来越多与中国相关的Ted主题演讲在这个平台上引起人们的重视，其良好的演讲效果成功重塑了中国形象。公众演讲是修辞的艺术，因此从语言的角度进入去研究演讲中修辞模式的使用有着十分重要的现实意义。

本文首先回顾了国内外学者对修辞模式和中国形象的研究，接着以六篇关于中国的Ted主题演讲为研究对象，统计和分析出这些演讲中频繁使用的四种修辞模式包含：议论、说明、叙述和比较，阐明这些演讲中的修辞模式对中国文化、经济和科技形象的重塑产生了的积极影响。文末还联系目前新冠疫情中中国形象在国际上受损的现实，提出在未来有关中国形象重塑的演讲中，以上各种修辞模式的合理选择和使用能从一定程度上改变这样的现状。

关键词：Ted演讲；修辞模式；中国形象重塑

Abstract

Ted Talks is the most influential speech platform in the world. In recent years, more and more Ted speeches related to China have attracted people's attention. Their good speech effect has successfully reshaped China’s image. Public speech is an art of rhetoric, so it is of great practical significance to study the use of rhetorical modes from the perspective of language.

This paper first reviews the research on rhetorical modes and China’s image by scholars at home and abroad, then takes six China-related Ted speeches as the research object, makes statistics and analysis of four rhetorical modes frequently used in these speeches, including: argument, exposition, story-telling and comparison, and illustrates that rhetorical modes in these speeches have produced positive impact on reshaping the image of Chinese culture, economy and technology. At the end of this paper, in connection with the current reality that novel coronavirus has damaged China’s image in the world, it points out that the reasonable choice and use of rhetorical modes in future speeches on China's image reshaping can change this situation to a certain extent.

Key words: Ted Talks; Rhetorical modes; China’s image reshaping

Contents

Introduction 1

1. Literature Review 2

1.1 Studies on rhetorical modes 2

1.2 Studies on China’s image 2

2. China-related Ted speeches and thier rhetorical modes 3

2.1 China-related Ted speeches 3

2.2 Different rhetorical modes in these speeches 4

3. Reshaped images of China in the speeches 9

3.1 Rich culture 9

3.2 Ambitious economy 10

3.3 Promising technology 11

4. Enlightenment for future Speech-making 14

4.1 Functions of different rhetorical modes 14

4.2 Well-arrangement of rhetorical modes 15

5. Conclusions 17

References 18

Acknowledgements 19

Rhetorical Modes for Reshaping China’s Image in Ted Talks

Introduction

Speech refers to a kind of language communication activity. Rhetorical modes are methods for effectively communicating through writing and speaking. Some of them aim at arguing a specific issue, some clearly and completely explain a new word or a phenomenon, and so on. Rhetorical modes in speeches can play a great role in many areas, and speaker's skillful command of them let the audience unconsciously be inspired by the speech.

National image is the public’s comprehensive evaluation and general impression of a country by the public. China’s image is an important part of the national soft power, however, the cowardice of the Qing government left China a deep-rooted image of a weak country in the world, and many people used to describe China as the sick man of East Asia. There are still many foreigners with low awareness of certain cognition of China, misled by some malevolent western media. Now our Chinese elites speak for China on the world stage. TED Talks is a global set of conferences, which is now the largest speech platform, and outstanding talents from all walks of life are invited to give speeches through this platform. It has become an important channel for foreigners to understand China.

Among Chinese elite’s ted talks, there are six most representative speeches, which show the image of China as a rising power from the aspects of culture, economy, science and technology. These speeches apply various rhetorical modes helpfully change many foreigners’ past view on China and their one-sided understanding of China. The arrangement of these rhetorical modes strongly conquer the western audience, arouse the mood of the audience and resonate with the audience. Through these contagious speeches, foreigners can really understand the developing new China and change their misunderstandings and prejudices about China.

1 Literature Review

Rhetorical modes have a long history since the emergence of rhetoric, rhetoricians has come up a variety of category of rhetorical modes through their research. With the continuous development of China, China’s image is constantly concerned by the international community, so many scholars have study China’s image from different materials. This section is to make a review on the previous research of rhetorical modes and China’s image.

1.1 Studies on rhetorical modes

Rhetorical modes have been key to western rhetoricians’ research. Alexander Bain, a Scottish logician and educator, proposed the multimodal rhetorical modes system which consists of narration, description, exposition, and argument. James (2012) intended to leave in its wake a coherent perspective on the study of rhetorical argument.

Domestically, Liu Donghong (2015) analyzes the rhetorical pattern of the paragraph from the perspective of the discourse relationship between the topic sentences. Rao Fangyu (2017) analyzed and studied rhetorical modes and its influence on English reading teaching to improve the quality of English reading teaching.

1.2 Studies on China’s image

Recently, increasing number of scholars notice the importance of China’s image and it has become a hot topic. Sun Xiangfei (2014) explored the necessary for China to constructs its own identity and to adjust the cognitive picture of China by the foreign public from the perspective of "cross-cultural communication path of China's image". Kong Zhaopeng (2019) discusses the role of cultural origin, narrative discourse, image pedigree, audio-visual language, and other factors in shaping China’s image through study of foreign films and television documentaries. Chen Yong, Zhang Kun and Zhang Mingxin (2019) analyze the impact of mass media contact on perceptions of China's image and Sino-US relations, according to the research of an online sample questionnaire survey conducted among 2200 samples.

Rhetorical mode is an important part of rhetoric, which is widely used in all aspects. There are many researches on rhetorical mode, but few on both rhetorical mode and the image of China. It is very meaningful to study rhetorical modes used in China-related Ted speeches for they effectively reshape China’s image. Also learning their arrangement and function will be helpful in future Speech-making.

2 China-related Ted speeches and their rhetorical modes

2.1 China-related Ted speeches

2.1.1 Ted Talks

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design. It is a global set of conferences, under the slogan "Ideas Worthy Spreading". Ted Talks started out in 1984 as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader, and today covers almost all topic—from science to business to global issues—in more than 110 languages. The annual conference now brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives. This site makes the best talks and performances from TED available to the public, for free. These videos are released under a Creative Commons license, so they can be freely shared and reposted. In recent years. TED has spawned some important extensions and has devoted to their mission: Spreading ideas.

2.1.2 China-related Ted speeches

2.2 Different rhetorical modes in these speeches

Rhetorical modes refer to the ways of presenting a subject in writing or by means of speech and a set of tools that allow people to effectively communicate information to their audience. Most essays incorporate several different rhetorical modes to express the speaker’s opinion and make his words more persuasive. In this section, I will analyze typical use of four rhetorical modes used in these six speeches which enable the speakers to organize their speeches orderly and make their words convincing.

2.2.1 Argument

Argument is the most recognizable of rhetorical modes. It is employed to put across a single point of view with the intention of persuading people to agree. An argument can be an educated guess or it can be a manufactured attempt to persuade.