Essay - Kenneth Burke Burke's Pentad and Its Effect on Communications Study...

Kenneth Burke

Burke's pentad and its effect on communications study

If one was to create a list of the greatest American rhetoricians and communications theorists ***** all time, Kenneth Burke would undoubtedly rate very highly. Burke was as remarkable a force in the development of rhetoric*****l and communications theory as he w***** an unlikely one. A college dropout *****ho got his start writing about music and for trade publications, Burke, who dabbled widely in genres rang*****g from academic writing to poetry ***** novels, steadily worked toward the founding of some essential truths in communications study. Burke devotes much of his research to advancing the perception of language as symbols and ***** humans as a group th*****t responded, *****ten predictably, to signals (Rountree, 1998). Arguably one of *****'s greatest contributions ***** ***** theory was the notion of ***** pentad - the five factors that influence motives ***** reaction in communications. Although experts believe ***** notion of the pentad, which includes act, scene, agent, agency and purpose, was initially conceived as a literary criticism device, it has been expanded to include a wide variety of communications, including public speaking. One can argue that Burke, through his ***** of ***** pentad, created a foundation for analyzing communication. This foundation has engendered a wealth of secondary works and has even led to the expansion of the original pentad to provide an even more comprehensive analysis of *****.

***** pentad explored

*****'s "A Grammar ***** Motives," originally published in 1945, was a sem*****al work in ***** field of communications *****. Burke intended the work to exp***** on the notion of dramatism, to which ***** subscribed, which saw language as a means of taking or encouraging *****ion (Henderson, 1997). In short, Burke wanted to work ***** an answer to the question "What is involved, when we say what people are doing and why *****y are doing it?" (*****, 1969). Burke concluded that language w*****, in effect, a symbol that could be used to motivate people to*****ard a certain action, depending on a number of f*****ctors (*****, 1969). Burke did not see this notion as particularly original, pointing out that it had ***** contemplated by ancient philosophers such ***** *****ristotle (Rountree, 1998).

The ***** world latched on to a key Burke*****n notion in "A Grammar ***** Motives" - the pentad. Burke envisioned that human behavior - which can be extended to human language ***** - depended on five fac*****rs:

Act: ***** happened or was said?

Scene: Where did ***** happen ***** what was ***** background?

Agent: Who is ***** ***** the acti*****? What was that person's role?

Agency: How, or ***** what *****, do the agents act?

Purpose: Why did ***** agents act? ***** was their motivation? (*****, 1969 and Burke's Pentad, No Date)

*****, for example, a television advertisement for McDonald's. The communications ***** ***** the commercial, ***** reminded us how tasty a cheeseburger can be; the scene is at your home, on a ***** screen, perhaps around dinner ********** the agents are McDonald's, the narr*****or,