Abstract
Kenneth Burke’s dramatistic pentad can be understood as a pentadic model of semiotic analysis. Dyadic, triadic, and other relational models offer valuable benefits, but Burke’s pentad is especially useful and relevant given its focus on both action and motive/purpose. Here we will look in more detail at some of these benefits of Burke’s schema understood in this semiotic light, and then we’ll apply the model to a few examples of object analysis. If it is true that Burke’s pentad works in this way as well as we think it does, then fruitful ground exists here for other researchers as well, particularly since Burke’s pentadic model features much less in the field of semiotics proper than do more common dyadic and triadic based models.
References
Arendt, Hannah. 1998. The human condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.10.7208/chicago/9780226924571.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Burke, Kenneth. 1945. A grammar of motives. New York: Prentice-Hall.Search in Google Scholar
Coniaris, Anthony M. 1982. Introducing the orthodox church: Its faith and life. Minneapolis: Light and Life.Search in Google Scholar
Danesi, Marcel. 2009. Opposition theory and the interconnectedness of language, culture, and cognition. Sign Systems Studies 37(1/2). 11–42.10.12697/SSS.2009.37.1-2.02Search in Google Scholar
Deely, John. 2001. Four ages of understanding. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.10.3138/9781442675032Search in Google Scholar
Rowling, J. K. 1997. Harry Potter and the sorcerer’s stone. New York: Scholastic Press.Search in Google Scholar
Tylén, Kristian. 2007. When agents become expressive: A theory of semiotic agency. Cognitive Semiotics 0. 84–101.Search in Google Scholar
Wilson, Deirdre & Dan Sperber. 2012. Meaning and relevance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781139028370Search in Google Scholar
© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston