Towards a history of classical Japanese rhetorics and their recognition in American composition studies

Abstract

This text attempts to construct a partial history of premodern Japanese rhetorics. This history is undertaken in contradiction to most previous scholarship on the topic, which generally claims that Japan had no rhetoric prior to its consistent contact with the West, which began at the time of the 1868 Meiji Restoration. The writer utilizes translated writings by and about Shinto, Buddhist, and Neo-Confucian Japanese scholars, and extracts from that material concepts of ethos, pathos, audience, occasion, argument, and language. Both rhetorical theory and practice are included, as these philosophers both used spoken and written language and discussed that use in abstract terms. The Japanese scholars receiving the most attention in the text are: Kamo Mabuchi, Motoori Norinaga, and Hirata Atsutane (Shinto); Kukai, Shinran, Dogen, and Nichiren (Buddhist); and Kaibara Ekken, Nakae Toju, Ito Jinsai, and Ogyu Sorai (Neo-Confucianism). Extensive doctrinal discussion is avoided in favor of exploring the ways in which the doctrines were communicated. The material on Japan is prefaced by a chapter reviewing Chinese rhetorics, and is followed by discussion of the representation of non-Western rhetorics in important American composition and rhetoric journals. The concluding chapter challenges the claims of existing scholarship on Japanese rhetorics and calls for additional study which will expand on the writer's conclusion that the Japanese were and are a rhetorically aware and active culture. The final chapter also suggests that Japanese rhetorical concepts and practices may be productively introduced into American writing classrooms. A glossary of Japanese, Chinese, and some Sanskrit (Buddhist) terms precedes the bibliography.