The idea of "lost in translation" is the most interesting part about studying Chinese, or any type of foreign rhetoric. For my seminar paper, I am contemplating talking about a launch against logos and ethos by talking about meaning. Hear me out here, because it gets a little philosophical. And yes, far-fetched.
In order to completely understand the Chinese Rhetoric, you have to know the language. A lot of time, translations do not match up. In this case, rhetoric shouldn't even be considered because it isn't technically a Chinese word. What does "rhetoric" even mean then? It doesn't really mean anything. It means something to us Americans, but even we don't know what it means! What is rhetoric? Nobody will agree with you. The meaning is constructed, and always changing. Meaning is indeterminate.
Let's take a couple words and "describe" them. We'll take the word "good" for instance. In order to describe the word, you can only describe it's opposite. You cannot describe it without talking about it's opposite, in other words. Good is merely the opposite of evil. What is evil then? It is the opposite of good. It's circle reasoning. Ironically, the logic of this concept destroys any type of logical argument dealing with meaning. Meaning is constructed from a system of constructed meaning.
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