il to express the best
in the culture. It follows that violations of such expression are
an index of something awry in the culture, or awry in members of
the culture who violate the convention of precise communication.
This point of view would explain the moral outrage that one might
feel upon hearing the clear and precise word (tax( replaced by the
obfuscating words (revenue enhancement( when spoken or written by
those likely to benefit from the money involved.
A case for the logical construction of Western style
writing is made by Matalene, who also cites Oliver's statement that
rhetorical standards "are expressions of Western culture" (789).
She makes the point as prelude to a contrastive rhetorical
discussion of Chinese vis a vis Western expression, noting that in
the west writers "subscribe to Aristotle's [logical] dictum, 'State
your case and prove it,' and we expect to be provided with premises
and conclusions connected by inductive or deductive reasoning"
(790). In this regard, Matalene appears to assume as a given the
demands of prescriptive grammar and rules, with the governing
principle of Western rhetoric that of logic and "cohesive,
coherent, and explicitly unified" language (790).
How the Western rhetorical system differs from the Chinese
emerges as Matalene tells the story of her personal culture shock
as an American teacher of English in modern China. Matalene
explains that Chinese, like English, is logically constructed and
expressed, but that the "hierarchy of culture, language, and
rhetoric" is logical for different reasons (790), owing to the
differences in culture and in linguistic equipment between China
and the West. The "equipment" is the easiest difference to
identify. Whereas the Western alphabet and the raft of Indo
European languages are governed by a set number of letters 26 in
English the ...