Dramatism

Este estudo tem o objetivo de apresentar e discutir alguns aspectos do dramatismo, método de análise das relações humanas e principalmente dos atos da linguagem e de pensamento, tal como apresentado pelo filósofo e crítico literário norte-americano Kenneth Burke (1897- 1993), entre os anos de 1930 a 1960. Praticamente desconhecido em nossa língua, o nome de Kenneth Burke e seu dramatismo são presenças obrigatórias nos recentes compêndios que abordam os estudos da performance e das performances culturais, pela comparação e relação que estabelecem entre a vida cotidiana e o drama e necessitam ser melhor conhecidos. Entre tantos teóricos, seus trabalhos influenciaram os críticos literários Harold Bloom (1930) e Susan Sontag (1933-2004), sua aluna na Universidade de Chicago, e principalmente a fundamentação do sociólogo Erving Goffman (1922-1982), seja em seus estudos da vida cotidiana como em sua “abordagem dramatúrgica” (dramaturgical approach). Como se infere, a partir do dramatismo, não somos apenas utilizadores da linguagem, somos também utilizados por ela, ela determina nossas ações. O dramatismo se estabelece como um instrumento de análise da linguagem como ação simbólica a partir de cinco termos chave (pentad dramatístico): o ato em si, o que foi feito; o agente do ato, o ator, quem realizou o ato; a cena (o lugar, o onde); a agência, os meios/instrumentos ou como se realiza a ação, ou ainda a capacidade autônoma das pessoas fazerem suas próprias escolhas; e o propósito. O ato é o termo central em torno do qual se organizam as cinco categorias de análise (pentad) e a investigação dos motivos da ação é a estratégia fundamental da análise dramatística. Burke propõe que o campo de observação da ação humana e de suas incontáveis combinações, as transposições e as transformações entre os termos do citado pentad, possibilitem uma análise da ação humana que tem o drama como termo central. O dramatismo procura responder as questões de como podem ser explicadas as ações humanas e, principalmente, como estas ações são determinadas pela capacidade simbólica. O dramatismo torna-se elemento central na análise da teatralidade humana, do ser humano em performance.

This study aims at presenting and discussing some of the aspects of dramatism, method of analysis of human relations and mainly of the acts of the language and of the thinking, as it is presented by the North American philosopher and literary critic Kenneth Burke (1897-1993), from the years 1930 to 1960. Practically unknown in our language, Kenneth Burke‟s name and of his dramatism are compulsory presences in the recent compendiums which deal with the studies of performance and of cultural performances, for the comparison and the relation they establish between everyday life and the drama and thus require be better known. Among many theorists, Burke‟s works have influenced the literary critics Harold Bloom (1930) and Susan Sontag (1933-2004), his student at the University of Chicago, and mainly the theoretical founding of the sociologist Erving Goffman (1922-1982), being that in his studies of everyday life as well as in his “dramaturgical approach”. As it is implied from dramatism, we are not only language users, we are also used by it and language determines our actions. Dramatism is established as an instrument of analysis of language as symbolic action from five key terms (dramatistic pentad): the act in itself, what has been done; the agent of the act, the actor, who performed the act; the scene (the place, the where); the agency, the means/instruments or how the action is performed, or even the autonomous capability of people to make their own choices; and the purpose. The act is the central term around which the five categories of analyses are organized (pentad) and the investigation of the motives of the action is the fundamental strategy of the dramatistic analyses. Burke proposes that the field of observation of the human action and of its innumerable combinations, the transpositions and the transformations among the terms of the cited pentad, makes it possible for an analysis of the human action that has drama as its central term. Dramatism attempts to answer the questions of how human actions can be explained, and mainly how these actions are determined by the symbolic capability. Dramatism becomes a central element in the analysis of human theatricality, of the human being in performance.

This paper described Jose Marie Viceral’s (popularly known as Vice Ganda), rhetorical dynamics and style through select episodes of It's Showtime. Noontime variety shows like Showtime mediate a wide range of topics before an audience; Vice's role as a host is vital for the program’s success. Video replays from 2009-2018 were collected for content analysis. The analyses focused on to the following: (1) Vice Ganda's delivery and style (word choice, length, intonation, voice, diction, and nonverbals); (2) overall setting in each episode (time, date, any special event/celebration); (3) audience's immediate response to Vice's hosting spiels. The research also looked into Vice's career history from stand-up comedy to the mainstream noontime setting; to have a better understanding of the nature of his humor and as an effective rhetorician. Supporting rhetorical theories as Methodological framework are Cicero's tenents of Rhetoric, Burke's Dramatism and Motives, and as well as some Humor Theories. The research finally presented several points: (1) Humor is an effective tool for persuasion, commonly executed through dispositio, elocutio, and pronunciatio; mastered through the speaker's memoria. (2) Vice's experience has contributed to his stylistics as an effective and humorous speaker; also a significant change observed in the nature of his humor, from personal attacks to artful use of words and nonverbals. His hosting and speaking styles has resulted to higher likeability and popularity from audience of various age groups.

Keywords: rhetoric, motives, Vice Ganda, humor, audience

George Herbert Mead's symbolic interactionalism provides a social behaviorist theory of the origin of role-playing. Being a perspective which stresses the inherent theatricality of human interaction and of the human mind, it is therefore, in an indirect way, a theory of the psychosocial roots of drama. Where we find the origin of language, and the origin of the human self, there we find, as well, the origin of drama. Besides, Mead's concept of self-interaction resulting from internalized interaction is crucial for an adequate understanding of the generative process which gives rise to the complexity of the human mind.

Keywords: George Herbert Mead, Dramatism, Social Psychology, Mind, Role-Playing, Internalization, Interactionism, Social Behaviorism, Drama, Self

Hay que creer en el papel que uno representa en el Gran Teatro del Mundo. Por el simple hecho de aparecer en sociedad ya aparecemos caracterizados como tal o cual personaje, o como sujetos que desempeñan tal o cual papel en la sociedad. Esto se supone que ha de tomarse en serio por todos, empezando por el propio sujeto-actor: ha de creer en su propio papel. (Como ya señalaba Santayana, no se nos da mal eso). En este artículo presentamos la introducción a la teoría dramatística de la vida social tal y como se expone en el primer capítulo de 'The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life' de Erving Goffman.

One must believe in the role one plays in the Great Theatre of the World. Merely by appearing in society we are characterized as such or such a character, or as subjects performing a given social role. There is an assumption that this is to be taken seriously by everyone, not least by social actor himself: he must believe in his own role. (As noted by Santayana, we are apt enough to do so). This paper provides an introduction to the dramatistic theory of social life as exposed in the first chapter of Erving Goffman's 'The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life'.

We will deal here with Thomas Hobbes's dramatistic theory of social interaction and of political representation, expounded in Part I of Leviathan. The dramatistic dimension of Hobbes's anthropology is a crucial link between his theory of the body, of perception and communication, and his theory of the body politic, of political authority and of representation.
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Keywords: Dramatism, Political theory, Thomas Hobbes, Representation, Anthropology, Interaction, Authority, Persons,

"Pragmatism and Literary Criticism: The Practical Starting Point." In REAL: Yearbook of Research in English and American Literature. (Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, 1999) A clarification and defense of a "pragmatist" approach to literary and cultural criticism. The basis of such an approach is the "practical starting point" which serves as "a necessary admonitory adjunct" and "an essential corrective ingredient" (Kenneth Burke's phrases) in any critical theory. The paper has four sections: §1 defines the term "starting point"; §2 distinguishes the theoretical (TSP) from the practical (PSP) starting point; §3 grounds the practical starting point philosophically and argues for its superiority for literary and cultural criticism; §4 shows how each starting point is exemplified by two critics, Richard Rorty and Kenneth Burke, and explains why Burke's method is superior.

This dissertation aims to map the evolutionary history of the talking filibuster as a rhetorical form. Since Senators can forego a talking filibuster and obstruct a bill with a secret hold, filibustering is a strategic rhetorical choice. In addition to the textuality of filibustering, then, what performative and symbolic rhetorical work is done by the filibuster that secret holds do not do? I argue that the filibuster is a form of populist transcendence, an innovative rhetorical technique for transcending senatorial elitism. Chapter two studies Robert La Follette and his era: the fin de siècle. This populist agrarian used lengthy deliberation and filibustering as “temporal republicanism” to slow legislative proceedings during the social acceleration of the industrial age. In response to La Follette’s deliberative filibusters, Senate rules were changed to stymie him. With deliberation restricted, filibustering Senators had to create and maintain a scene to hold the floor. Chapters three and four study Huey Long and "Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," the personae they adopted, and the suffering they underwent to create their dramatic filibusters. However, Frank Capra’s film over-dramatized the visuals and motorized the pacing of the filibuster to create a spectacular caricature of the form for mass entertainment. Finally, in our social-media age, the filibuster has taken on a hybrid form: synthesizing spectacular drama with deliberation. Chapter five studies Wendy Davis and her ability to interact with citizens through social media. The co-creation of the filibuster by senators and citizens produced identification, empathy, deliberation, and dramatic political action when citizens went to the Texas capitol and shouted from the gallery to kill the bill. Using Jacques Rancière, I find that this new form of filibustering blurs the line between actors and audience and can emancipate spectators. Thus, social media is re-enlivening both the dramatic and deliberative aspects of filibustering. Overall, the filibuster began as a deliberative form, became a dramatic form, and now within the social media spectacle, deliberation and drama are synthesizing.

Innovations are all around us, often taken for granted. But before they come to life they must first be created and these entrepreneurial processes happen in fragmented, non-linear paths of activities. While the end product is many times visible for the eye, the journey from idea to realization needs to be emploted into a story.

In this dissertation, two entrepreneurial initiatives – the Ideabank and Competence Arena West – are followed over a timeperiod of almost three years. Both of them have the aim to build web-based platforms for knowledge exchange and in order to achieve this quest, they continuously seek legitimacy and resources from their environment while building IT-infrastructure and structuring an increasing amount of content. This requires a lot of involvement work toward human and non-human elements. Rhetoric is mixed with crafting and future dreams are blended into present chaos, as the drama of entrepreneurship unfolds.

The thesis aims to give a rich qualitative account of the thoughts and feelings in the establishment of new web-based platforms. The empirical data are based on ongoing interviews with the entrepreneurs behind the ventures, coupled by a vast number of related documents produced over the years. The two cases are discussed using the American literary theorist Kenneth Burke’s so called “pentad” as framework for reflection. By having a narrative approach to entrepreneurship, the author wishes to contribute to the emerging academic movement which views entrepreneurship as a process of “becoming” rather than “being” and putting language in the center of attention for describing and understanding everyday entrepreneurial practice over time.

”A Rhetorical Rescue Operation. King Harald V of ­Norway’s Eulogy After the Breivik Attacks and Kenneth ­Burke’s Dramatism as a Theory of Social Change'"

The article is a pentadic analysis of King Harald V of Norway’s eulogy held a month after July 22, 2011. An inter­pretation of the motives of the speech, the study is based on ­Kenneth Burke’s view of ambiguity as a necessity for transition related to Barbara A. Biesecker’s view of dramatism as a theory of social change. With its plethora of strategic points of necessary ambiguity, the speech’s tension balances epideictic unification with the politically flavoured memory of victims whose primary shared characteristic is their social responsibility. In this tension, grounds are found for a claim that rhetorical empowerment enables victims and reduces domination by stressing social responsibility as a ­universally available source of rhetorical agency. The eulogy is interpreted as a pivotal point of rhetorical social change and a ­performance of social responsibility, empowerment and public mass care."

"Was Kenneth Burke a Pragmatist?" Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society (Summer 1995) At present, Kenneth Burke is primarily known as a critic of literature and rhetoric, not as a philosopher. Important affinities between Burke's views and the epistemological and metaphysical doctrines of Classical Pragmatists (e.g., Dewey and Peirce) call for a philosophical reappraisal of Burke. Part one sketches significant areas of agreement between Burke and Pragmatism, while part two details several crucial differences. I conclude that Burke is most "Pragmatic" in his early writings; his later writings on "logology" (which systematize his views on the structure of language) depart from Pragmatism's traditional emphases upon method and situation-based analysis.

Abstract: This paper considers the relation between literacy, social media practices and rhetoric, by focusing on game-related spaces as sites for learning. Studies from various disciplinary research domains like anthropology (eg Ito and Bittanti 2010) and socio-linguistics (eg Gee 2003) connect games and learning. Gee (2003) provocatively claims that games can be considered more powerful learning environments than traditional education. He attributes several learning principles to gaming, thereby also calling attention to affinity ...

This thesis examines The Iceman Cometh (1946) by Eugene O’Neill in light of the epistemology, aesthetics, and ethics of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, as well as the political theory of Karl Marx and the anarchist Errico Malatesta. Nietzsche has long been considered a major influence on O’Neill’s drama. However, the present study demonstrates the ways in which the Ideology of the School, defined by Louis Althusser as the presentation of a purported objectivity which effaces the role played by educational apparatuses in the reproduction of capitalist ideology, has led O’Neill scholars to avoid considering Nietzsche’s critical influence on The Iceman Cometh. As a result of this systemic resistance, the political themes in O’Neill’s play have been underdeveloped and even inverted so as to suggest that O’Neill was not critical of capitalism in any way. Moreover, O’Neill’s tragicomedy has been almost exclusively interpreted as a tragedy, resulting in a general neglect of its...

Turkish drama series aired on state network TRT (Turkish Radio and Television) connect Ottoman history with contemporary events in Turkey and have been instrumental agents in the government’s attempts to shape the political reality in accordance with its political agenda. This article examines the narrative cultivated by the popular historical drama Payitaht: Abdülhamid (2017) by using the dramatistic process framework. In doing so, it analyzes the overlapping narrative of historical and contemporary in-groups and out-groups. Payitaht: Abdülhamid recreates the current political divides on screen in Turkey by assigning guilt and redeemer statuses to certain characters in the drama series and by providing a longitudinal perspective of Turkish history. Payitaht: Abdülhamid is, therefore, a political tool used by the ruling AKP (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi [Justice and Development Party]) government to cultivate and propagate a worldview that connects the Ottoman past to contemporary politics. Furthermore, Payitaht: Abdülhamid feeds the existent divisions within Turkey by reinforcing the AKP’s political discourse on key domestic and foreign policy issues and helps to push its agenda to the fore.

Abstract: This paper considers the relation between literacy, social media practices and rhetoric, by focusing on game-related spaces as sites for learning. Studies from various disciplinary research domains like anthropology (eg Ito and Bittanti 2010) and socio-linguistics (eg Gee 2003) connect games and learning. Gee (2003) provocatively claims that games can be considered more powerful learning environments than traditional education. He attributes several learning principles to gaming, thereby also calling attention to affinity ...

We will deal here with Thomas Hobbes's dramatistic theory of social interaction and of political representation, expounded in Part I of Leviathan. The dramatistic dimension of Hobbes's anthropology is a crucial link between his theory of the body, of perception and communication, and his theory of the body politic, of political authority and of representation.

In The War of Words Burke uses the term scientific to describe the news “in the sense that it deals with information” but is also rhetorical since “it forms attitudes or induces to action.” In this essay I outline Burke’s major ideas in his “Scientific Rhetoric” chapter; present for consideration Burke’s assumptions about the press; and conclude with comments about how one might productively extend Burke’s insights into future studies of the news media.  Paper can be found here: http://kbjournal.org/kuypers-scientific-rhetoric

This is the introduction to TIBET ON FIRE: BUDDHISM, PROTEST, AND THE RHETORIC OF SELF-IMMOLATION (Palgrave 2015). This chapter considers Tibet (and international Tibetans) as a "rhetorical situation," one in which a logomachy is fought out in English-language press.

In their article "Rhetorical Analysis of Literary Culture in Social Reading Platforms" Joachim Vlieghe and Kris Rutten present a case study of the discourse surrounding literary phenomena that are emerging within social media. The case study is part of a methodological exploration within literacy studies whereby the social media's transformative effects on literary literacies are studied by focusing on language as symbolic and situated action. Vlieghe and Rutten have identified unique social reading platforms based on a prolonged study of the social media environment. The analysis of the developers' discourse on social reading platforms shows how developers are formulating new instructions on how to talk and to act in relation to literature by changing the scope of concepts related to literary phenomena within the "social media" system. Joachim Vlieghe and Kris Rutten, "Rhetorical Analysis of Literary Culture in Social Reading Platforms" page 2 of 10 CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 15.3 (2013): Thematic Issue Literacy and Society, Culture, Media, and Education. Ed. Kris Rutten and Geert Vandermeersche Joachim VLIEGHE and Kris RUTTEN Rhetorical Analysis of Literary Culture in Social Reading Platforms Siegfried J. Schmidt explains that people's mediated sociocultural participation is conventionalized through language, thereby also institutionalizing processes relating to the semiotic system of the employed media ("Media" ). He suggests that both the social and the semiotic systems of cultural institutions can be studied by exploring concepts describing socially accepted forms of mediated participation in communities. Based on his empirical study of concepts relating to literary phenomena, Schmidt concludes that "in 'modern' societies, the acting possibilities of actors in the social system of literature are institutionally distributed onto four action dimensions: production, mediation, reception, and post-processing" ("Systems-Oriented" 124). He argues, however, that descriptions of media systems are only provisional because every new medium affects people's opportunities for social participation by changing or replacing existing acting possibilities, as well as adding new ones. In order to study the transformative effects of new media, Schmidt proposes to examine and compare the uses and meanings of concepts related to media phenomena in and across various media systems. The research presented in this article is also a methodological exploration within literacy studies: we propose to study the transformative effects of new media related to literary literacies by focusing on language as symbolic and situated action. Language can be considered the most fundamental tool by which people conceive, comprehend, and communicate understandings of reality and formulate "instructions on how to act and talk so as to take on a particular role that others will recognize" (Gee, What is Literacy? 1). Thus, different uses of language can be studied as indicators of how people perceive a situation and the choices and actions they see available to them, thereby offering insight into the motives for acting (see Foss). These situated meanings and motive-generating functions that language performs in relation to specific contexts can be studied by using tools from rhetorical criticism (see Brummett). In particular, we adhere to Kenneth Burke's dramatistic theory and apply the dramatistic pentad as an analytical method for "analyzing discourse by focusing on how it attributes motivation to human action" (Blakesley, The Elements 32). Burke describes the human being as "the symbol-making, symbol-using, symbol-misusing animal" ("Language" 16) and claims that we can learn to understand how these symbols work by analyzing literature, speeches, or even accounts of what people do and why as dramatistic situations. The aim of our analysis is to understand the attributed motives of social interactions by addressing the question: "what is involved when we say what people are doing and why they are doing it?" (Burke, A Grammar xv). Dramatistic theory has been adopted by different scholars in order to study popular culture (e.g., Kimberling; Brummett), film (e.g., Blakesley, The Terministic), video games (e.g., Bourgonjon, Rutten, Soetaert, Valcke; Voorhees), and theater (e.g., Rutten, Mottart, Soetaert). Burke's dramatistic pentad incorporates and divides the question of "what is involved" into five distinct segments or elements: 1) the "act" (what happens), 2) "agent" (who does the act), 3) "scene" (the setting in which an action takes place), 4) "agency" (the means by which the act is carried out), and 5) "purpose" (the goal or objective of the act) (see Language). When starting the analysis, the first step is to identify the terms or concepts that represent these five key elements. The next step is to apply ratios that pair two different elements in order to examine their mutual influence and to detect the dominant pentadic…

Kenneth Burke's concept of literary reference “frames” has become important in the study of rhetoric and social change. The tragic frame has been thoroughly examined, but other metaphors for rhetorical movements remain relatively unexplored. The rhetoric of selected woman humorists from 1820 to 1880 exemplifies the operation of various frames related to the comic. The prevailing form of women's humor became less and less truly comic, eventually sliding to the satiric and finally into burlesque. The comic frame could not be ...

The distribution of foreign correspondents across the globe indicates countries’ newsworthiness, particularly significant when media companies withdraw their journalists residing abroad. This article analyzes in-depth interviews with foreign correspondents in Poland, which has changed dramatically during the 30 years preceding the research. It answers the questions of (1) What are the facts and issues in Poland’s recent history that foreign correspondents selected as particularly meaningful and worth reporting to their audiences? (2) And how did they frame them, contributing to the country’s popular understanding and positioning in the political, economic, and cultural global order? The continuous drop in newsworthiness of Poland indicates its normalizing situation as a semi-peripheral country. Rhetorical analysis of how the correspondents talked about Poland shows a prominent scene-act ratio. Poland’s image shifts from a recognized agent of the bloodless democratic revolution, metaphorically rather than geographically distant to Western European countries, a scene of economic and mental transformation to an EU member, an agent coping surprisingly well with the economic crisis and a scene of values changes as well as new political and social cleavages of the local importance. It is a country where history and memories of the past have relevance in contemporary politics and where its representations in foreign media resonate and provoke political reactions.