Puzzles for pragmatics and rhetoric and advent of pragma-rhetoric

Abstract

No other interdisciplinary issue has inspired a greater debate than the pragmatics-rhetoric border. This paper explores the pragmatics-rhetoric boundary issues and the possibility of marrying pragmatics to rhetoric for pragma-rhetoric. It first addresses the twenty ‘puzzles’ or predicaments the past studies of pragmatics and rhetoric have met with. It is held that similarities between the two disciplines make ‘pragma-rhetoric’ possible and their differences serve as the conditions for their inter-complementarity. Then we discuss some misunderstandings about pragma-rhetoric integration. Due to the alikeness of speech acts, pragmatic acts and rhetoric acts, we forward ‘pragma-rhetorical act’ (PRA) for an umbrella term in the emerging ‘pragma-rhetoric’. Finally we formulate the academic tasks and features of the interdiscipline, with a ‘standard paradigm’ and two ‘sub-paradigms’ of pragma-rhetorical research.