ABSTRACT
After teaching English for 18 years in TYUT, I felt I had reached my exhaustion point, not physically but mentally. I desperately needed cutting-edge knowledge to refresh my brain and expand my horizons beyond the classroom. Therefore, I made a bold decision: applying for a Ph.D. in the U.S. which may give me an opportunity to pursue what I need and to answer many questions lingering in my mind. In the past few years, after a visit to Swansea University, UK in 2017–18, I expanded my research interests, put in a great deal of effort and started to publish book chapters and a monograph in translation studies, discourse analysis and language teaching. Gradually, however, I felt the limitation of the current research paradigm. For one thing, in the field of rhetorical studies, there is no established rhetorical model to account for the rhetoric in Chinese discourses; no appropriate analytical framework. How can we update outmoded research methodology and framework? How can we link theory and praxis efficiently when it comes to Chinese rhetoric and rhetorical analysis in general? And so on. After countless twists and turns, I decided to anchor my Ph.D. research in Rhetoric and Composition, a strong field in the American universities which I believe will offer good background knowledge and training for me to begin to answer these questions. After removing the obstacles in the application process one by one, two offers were obtained and one of them arrived on my birthday in 2020. These offers of teaching scholarships drummed up my interest in rhetoric and provided the aspiration and motivation to incubate this book. The ensuing preparatory work for studying rhetoric is the seed that grew into this book in your hand. I appreciate the heroic support from the general editor Chris Shei in the process of preparing the book proposal. I am also grateful to Dr. Qing Cao who offered a friendly hand when this book was in a fragile, embryonic stage. From editing this book, I hope to take one step forward in my academic career and one important leap for Chinese rhetoric.
