Dramatism Of Kenneth Burke

Identification: Without It, There is No Persuasion  Burke was less concerned with enthymeme and example than he was with a speaker’s overall ability to identify with an audience.  Identification is the common ground that exists between speaker and audience.  Substance: a person’s physical characteristics, talents, occupation, background, personality, beliefs, and values.

Identification: Without It, There is No Persuasion  The more overlap there is between the substance of the speaker and the substance of the listener, the greater the identification is.  Behavioral scientists have used the term homophily to describe perceived similarity between speaker and listener.  Burke said identification is “consubstantiation.”

The Dramatistic Pentad  Burke regarded persuasion as the communicator’s attempt to get the audience to accept his or her view of reality as true.  The dramatistic pentad is a tool to analyze how the speaker tries to do it.  The five-pronged method is a shorthand way to “talk about their talk about.”

The Dramatistic Pentad  Burke’s pentad directs the critic’s attention to five crucial elements of the human drama: §Act (response) §Scene (situation) §Agent (subject) §Agency (stimulus) §Purpose (target)

Guilt-Redemption Cycle: The Root of All Rhetoric  The immediate purpose of a speech may vary according to the scene or agent, but Burke was convinced that the ultimate motivation of all public speaking is to purge ourselves of an ever-present, all-inclusive sense of guilt.  Guilt is his catch-all term to cover every form of tension, anxiety, embarrassment, shame, disgust, and other noxious feelings that he believed intrinsic to the human condition.

A Rhetorical Critique Using Dramatistic Insight  Many rhetorical critics in speech communication have adopted Burke’s techniques of literary criticism to inform their understanding of specific public address events.  Malcolm X, “The Ballot of the Bullet”

A Rhetorical Critique Using Dramatistic Insight  Burke was perhaps the foremost rhetorician of the twentieth century.  Burke wrote about rhetoric; other rhetoricians write about Burke.

A Rhetorical Critique Using Dramatistic Insight  Burke’s writing invites active reader participation as he surrounds an idea.  His concept of rhetoric as identification is a major advance in a field of knowledge which many scholars had thought complete.  Of all Burke’s motivational principles, his strategies of redemption are the most controversial.