Kenneth Burke's Rhetorical Criticism

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Kenneth Burke, a twentieth-century rhetorical critic, focuses attention towards motivation for messages; emphasizing the “why” behind what people say. Meaning, Burke rejects, “…the commonly held notion that communication is primarily a process of message transmission” insisting the motives for speech as a rhetorical act-dramatism. (293) In fact, Burke defines dramatism as, “A technique of analysis of language and thought as basically modes of action rather than as means of conveying information”. (293) Equally important, Burke’s, “…five-pronged tool…” helps critics with discerning a speaker’s motives by suggesting critics identify the, “…act, scene, agent, agency, and purpose of the speech or publication”. (294). Although Burke considers language