The polyphony of rhetorical question

Abstract

    This paper points out the rhetorical questions are typical polyphonic utterances. It's often used when there are opposite ideas between two voices. The first idea is belong to other people (not Speaker), it is difference with speaker's idea at the time of speech.The second idea is belong to Speaker, it deities the first idea. The Speaker points out the mcorreetness of the first idea and asks the interlocutor to change his or her idea. As the second voice in rhetorical questions is always the speaker, the first voice have many eases: An interlocutor's idea that was told directiy or existed in presupposition, an idea of tiie third person, the other idea of the Speaker, an idea that was inferred from someone's action, an ' idea that the Speaker guesses someone in a possible world can say or think of.