A Cognitive Pragmatic Study of Rhetorical Questions

Xin Wang

doi:10.5539/ells.v4n1p42

Abstract

While the previous researches on rhetorical questions are quite extensive, the inherent mechanism of rhetorical questions is yet to be explored. This study established the scenario of rhetorical questions making statements (called the RQ scenario) which is composed of three components: the BEFORE—the speaker disagrees with the hearer, considering the hearer’s utterance or action as unreasonable, inappropriate and the like and wants the hearer to accept his or her opinion or perform the required action; the CORE—the speaker challenges the hearer to agree with him or her or do the required action and its immediate RESULT—the hearer is challenged to agree with the speaker or do something as is required; and the AFTER—the hearer will agree with the speaker or do the action as required. It is held that in the RQ scenario, each component bears a metonymic relationship to the other components and to the whole. So, by highlighting one of the three components of the scenario, the speaker is making statements when asking rhetorical questions.

Highlights

It is generally acknowledged that questions exhibit a primarily answer-eliciting function
This study established the scenario of rhetorical questions making statements which is composed of three components: the BEFORE—the speaker disagrees with the hearer, considering the hearer’s utterance or action as unreasonable, inappropriate and the like and wants the hearer to accept his or her opinion or perform the required action; the CORE—the speaker challenges the hearer to agree with him or her or do the required action and its immediate RESULT—the hearer is challenged to agree with the speaker or do something as is required; and the AFTER—the hearer will agree with the speaker or do the action as required
They maintain that for rhetorical yes-no questions, a positive question is equivalent to a negative assertion and a negative question is equivalent to a positive assertion while for rhetorical wh-questions, the positive question equals a statement in which the wh-element is replaced by a negative element and the negative question equals a statement in which the wh-element is replaced by a positive element

Summary

Introduction

It is generally acknowledged that questions exhibit a primarily answer-eliciting function. Carrying out their study from the interaction of syntactics and semantics, Quirk et al (1972, 1985) hold that a rhetorical question is interrogative in structure but displays a strong assertive force and generally does not expect an answer. Rhetorical questions generally include certain formal indicators: intonation pattern, special particles (adverbials), non-deontic modal verbs and mood. Echoing other scholars, he holds that rhetorical questions are “insincere questions”, for the speaker knows the answer. On the basis of the materials in talk shows, Ilie (1999) proposes a pragmatic framework for the interpretation of the discursive and argumentative functions of non-standard questions Her investigation involves three types of www.ccsenet.org/ells. With the data collected from English classical novels, this paper is devoted to uncovering the mechanism of rhetorical questions by embarking on the present study from a cognitive pragmatic perspective

Rhetorical Questions Performing Indirect Speech Acts

Speech Act Scenario in RQs

The BEFORE Component Stands for the Whole Scenario

The AFTER Component Stands for the Whole Scenario

Conclusion