Dramatism
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| "All the world’s a stage." —William Shakespeare |
Dramatism, introduced by rhetorician Kenneth Burke, made its way into the field of communication in the early 1950s is a method for understanding the social uses of language and how to encounter the social and symbolic world as a drama (Brock, Burke, Burgess, Parke, and Simons 1985). Dramatism's intent is to offer a logical method for understanding human motives or why people do what they do (Fox 2002). Dramatism is the belief that language is a strategic, motivated response to a specific situation (Griffin 2006). It views language as a mode of symbolic action rather than a mode of knowledge (Burke 1978). Kenneth Burke view was that life is not like a drama, life is a drama. Dramatism theory has the layout of a play, complete with actors and plotlines. Dramatism is comprised of identification, dramatistic pentad, and guilt-redemption cycle.
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[edit] History
Dramatism was Kenneth Burke’s favorite word to describe what he saw going on when people open their mouths to communicate (Miller 2005). Kenneth Burke has been highly influential in the field of communication and his work is highly embraced. Many scholars have argued over the past fifty years how dramatism should be viewed: The two worldviews are argued 1) An ontological system which offers literal statements regarding the nature of the human beings as a symbol user and the nature of language as an act, or 2) an epistemological system which assumes but one way of viewing human beings and human activities, such as language using. Burke’s Dramatism has been continuously compared to Aristotle’s Rhetoric (Overington 1977). Scholars have studied dramatism as a method and how it addresses the empirical questions of how people explain their actions to themselves and others, what the cultural and social structural influence on these explanations might be, and what effect connotational links among the motivational terms might have on these explanations and on the action itself (Overington 1977). Dramatism has covered complex studies, but it offers simplicity, the basic dramatic form allows consideration of the full range of activities it intends to study (Crable 2000).
[edit] Perspectives of Dramatism
[edit] Identification
Identification is the common ground that exists between the speaker and audience and without identification there is no persuasion (Griffin 2005).
[edit] Features of Identification
- Substance describes a person’s traits, personality, beliefs, values, and occupation
- More overlap of substance with speaker and listener greater identification
- It flows in both communicative directions
- Unity and Division, unity occurs as individuals intersts are joined and at the same time they are divided
[edit] Dramatistic Pentad
Dramatistic Pentad is the tool to analyze how the speaker tries to persuade the audience to accept their view of reality as true (Griffin 2006). Using the pentad to analyze our social situations can communicate to us which aspects of the situation were more important than others. The pentad is made up of the five elements of human drama.
- Act:what was done by a person
- Scene: description of the scene gives a context for where and when the act was performed, immediate or historical social situation
- Agent: person or people who performed the act
- Agency: the methods used to perform the act
- Purpose: implied goal of the act
The pentad helps the social world understand the complexities of situations. Burke also developed ten ratios of the pentad. An example of scene-act ratio is the supreme court would be exemplifying a scene-act ratio in deciding that emergency measures are admissible because there is a state of emergency. The scene, the state of emergency, determines the act, emergency measures (Benoit 1983). This is a causal statement.
[edit] Guilt-Redemption Cycle
Guilt-Redemption Cycle is considered the plot of the whole play and human drama or the root of all rhetoric (Griffin 2006). In this perspective, Burke concluded that the ultimate motivation of an agent is to purge ourselves of our sense of guilt. The term guilt covers tension, anxiety, shame, disgust, embarrassment, and other similar feelings. Guilt is created through symbolic interaction. Guilt comes when we are estranged from the natural world or estranges from others in our world. Guilt serves as a motivating factor that drives the human drama (Miller 2005).
[edit] Choice of the Speaker
- Mortification-purge guilt through self-blame, admit they are wrong, ask for forgiveness
- Victimage-blame problems on someone else, lash out on who people fear, designating an external enemy
ghosts
[edit] Utilization of theory
- Ideas studied by scholars in a variety of fields; English, Communication, political science, psychology, sociology
- Analyze public address (why a speaker selects a certain strategy to identify with audience, like Malcolm X speech)
- Religious themes
- Political advertising and political campaigns
- Corporate realm, business influence on federal policy agenda (Berger 2001)
- Used in writing courses to help students understand how language produces knowledge, professional communication, case studis (Fox 2002)
- Examine the nature of texts and narratives (Manning 1999)
- Study to test and compare other Burkeian methods (Hamlin and Nichols 1973)
[edit] References
- Miller, K. (2005). Communication theories: perspectives, processes, and contexts.(2nd ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
- Griffin, Em. (2006). A First Look at Communication Theory. (6th ed.) New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
- Overington, M. (1977). Kenneth Burke and the Method of Dramatism. Theory and Society, 4, 131-156.
- Crable, Bryan. (2000). Burke's Perspective on Perspectives: Grounding Dramatism in the Representative Anecdote. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 86, 318-333.
- Burke, Kenneth. (1978). Questions and Answers about the Pentad. College Compositions and Communication, 29, 330-335.
- Fox, Catherine.(2002). Beyond the Tyranny of the Real: Revisiting Burke's Pentad as Research Method for Professional Communication. Technical Communication Quarterly, 11, 365-388.
- Manning, Peter K. (1999). High Risk Narratives: Textual Adventures. Qualitative Sociology, 22, 285-299.
- Benoit, William L. (1983). Systems of Explanation: Aristotle and Burke on Cause. Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 13, 41-57.
- Hamlin, William J.; Nichols, Harold J. (1973). The Interest Value of Rhetorical Strategies Derived from Kenneth Burke's Pentad. Western Speech, 37, 97-102.
- Brock, Bernard L.; Burke, Kenneth; Burgess, Parke G.; Simons, Herbert W. (1985). Dramatism as Ontology or Epistemology: A Symposium. Communication Quarterly, 33, 17-33.
