Talk:Identification in rhetoric

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): AmalAlharthi, Jialeijiang, Marie Webb.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 22:48, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Planned Edits
"Kenneth Burke is believed to be the most influential of U.S. rhetorical theorists. Burke’s work and thought is so deep and immense while his influence is so universal and essential."

I don't doubt Burke as a notable figure among rhetorical theorists. However, I do believe the above sentences sound a little bit too over patronizing. Burke already has an entire Wiki page devoted to him. The term "essential" is not necessary and especially the word "so" before "influential." Why not just link to his wiki page next to his name instead. There are many more scholars and female scholars which have developed and expanded upon Burke's original concept of identification. I will explain more about those in a further post. But for now,

I would rework the above sentences as follows: "Kenneth Burke is one of the most notable contemporary U.S. rhetoricians who made major contributions to the rhetoric of identification."

The updated paragraph would be: Contemporary Rhetoric focuses on cultural contexts and general structures of rhetoric structures. "Kenneth Burke is one of the most notable contemporary U.S. rhetoricians who made major contributions to the rhetoric of identification." of his most foundational ideas is as follows, “rhetoric makes human unity possible, that language use is symbolic action, and that rhetoric is symbolic inducement” (Burke, as cited in Herrick, 2009, p. 225). Branching from this, Herrick states that identification in rhetoric is crucial to persuasion, and thus to cooperation, consensus, compromise, and action (p. 10). Burke believed that the most serious human problem was to be alienated or separated, and rhetoric was to be that problem’s only solution. Much of his work was based on bringing people back together. “Identification is affirmed with earnestness precisely because there is division. Identification is compensatory to division” (Burke, as cited in Herrick, 2009, p. 225-226). Rhetoric’s goal, in regards to identification, is to bring people together of whom have been separated by estrangement or opposition (Herrick, 2009).

Marie Webb (talk) 01:54, 10 April 2017 (UTC)


 * I agree with Marie's revision of the sentence regarding Burke's contribution. I also feel that it would be better if this web page is linked to the main page on "rhetoric." Additionally, other rhetorical perspectives, such as feminist theories, could be incorporated to expand and enrich Burke's contribution to identification theory.Jialeijiang (talk) 04:07, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

The current example about Burkes identification with a link to an article about how Identification is compared to the movie Black Swan is very weak. In the current text that I have pasted below, there are direct quotes taken from the article without quotation marks or direct reference to the source itself. Thus, I am deleting this section all together as the source itself is weak and the application of the source was not paraphrased in a clear way by the writer. "The movie follows its main character Nina, who is dangerously obsessed with becoming the perfect swan for the new production of Swan Lake, which requires the principal dancer to embody both the White and the Black swans." (The sentence from the reference, that was also missing, http://kbjournal.org/oktay) I am deleting the following"Through her struggle with identification, this leads to obsessive and harmful thoughts and decisions. The main character transitions identities throughout the movie, often triggered by deep desires or feelings of isolation. This would be explained by Burke’s idea that “the visible tangible material embodies the spirit that infuses them in the medium of words. And in this, things become the signs of the genius that resides in words”. This is merely a case of identification. The imagery of the transitions and dying is a special case of transformation, and transformation involves the ideas and imagery of identification (Oktay, 2014)." Marie Webb (talk) 21:01, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Digital Writing
— Assignment last updated by Ashlynbellman (talk) 15:31, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

Proposed merge 2023
Identification in Burkean rhetoric appears to duplicate the information present in this article. They should be merged together. Anarchyte ( talk ) 08:32, 5 May 2023 (UTC)