Identification in rhetoric

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. One 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.”[1] Branching from this, Herrick states that identification in rhetoric is crucial to persuasion, and thus to cooperation, consensus, compromise, and action. 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.”[1] Rhetoric's goal, in regards to identification, is to bring people together of whom have been separated by estrangement or opposition.

History

Kenneth Burke plays an important part in learning and understanding the core values of rhetorical theory in identification. He introduces the notion by taking the Aristotelian approach into a "world of particulars." Burke states that Aristotle treated rhetoric as purely verbal. But there are also areas of overlap. The flexibility of identification that Burke has created expands into elements beyond language.[2] Burke wrote that “identification ranges from the politician who, addressing an audience of farmers, says, ‘I was a farm boy myself,’ through the mysteries of social status, to the mystic's devout identification with the source of all being.”[1] This symbolic interaction is possible because it recognizes the hidden sources of identification among human beings as symbol users. From this, Burke understands symbols as something that is around constantly, and that choosing to accept and learning to read them accurately is what needs to be understood.[3]

Application

Burke’s theory of identification has been applied and expanded upon in Krista Ratcliffe’s Rhetorical Listening Framework. Ratcliffe proposes the “blurring of Burke’s and Fuss’s theories of identification, what becomes visible is multiple places for rhetorical listening.[4] When applying Burke and Fuss’s theories, Ratcliffe proposes non-identification in cross-cultural communication and feminist pedagogy. Her critique of Western logic is that it is difficult to simultaneously pay attention to both commonalities and differences, but that is where non-identification exists and thus provides a place for rhetorical listening.[4] Burke’s theory is critiqued by Ratcliffe for only focusing on identification; she argues that rhetorical listeners need to be accountable and take into consideration different points of view, which can be done through simultaneous listening to commonalities and differences.

Ratcliffe draws upon Diane Fuss because Fuss expands Burke’s theory of identification to gear toward examining the differences in identificaion. Fuss defines Identification as related to the issue of connection between opposite entities, such as the interrelation between self and other, subject and object, and insiders and outsiders.[4] For Fuss, identification is difficult to pinpoint, as the distinction between opposite entities is porous, oftentimes “impossibly confused and finally untenable.”[4] Fuss further builds the connection between identification and disidentification.[4] Fuss defines disidentification as contingent on previous identification with another group, no matter how stereotypical the identification is, while at the same time the identification has receded from the subconscious.[4] Ratcliffe argues that previously identification has been configured as a metaphor, which is manifested in Burke's consubstantiality and Fuss's (dis)identification. Ratcliffe notes that metaphor has been used to function as the dominant trope for identification; however, metaphor foregrounds commonalities more than differences.[4] Ratcliff suggests theorizing identification via the use of metonymy to counter the privilege of communality. Intrinsic to the trope of metonymy is an attention to both commonalities and differences.[4]

Practical applications of Burke's “identification” can be seen in the scholarly effort to reframe identifications. Assembling essays from the fifth Biennial Rhetoric Society of America Conference, Michelle Ballif addresses Ratcliffe's call for rethinking Burke's notion of identification “as a place of perpetual reframing that affects who, how, and what can be thought, spoken, written, and imagined.”[5] While some of the essay contributors draw upon Burke's theory to reinterpret social identifications, others turn to specific social actions to reread Burke's “identification.” For instance, following Ratcliffe's critique of Burke's theory for its lack of attention to difference, Dominic J. Ashby destabilizes Burke's relatively fixed and teleological construction of identification with “a fluid and contingent notion of self”—that is, “uchi/soto,"[5] or inside/outside in Japanese rhetoric—highlighting a simultaneous exclusion and inclusion of outsiders through an ongoing unfolding of group dynamics. By way of analyzing the Facebook news feed of “We are all Khaled Said,” Katherine Bridgman expands Burkean identification to “embodiment,”[5] or the mutually coordinated experience between speakers and their audiences triggered by specific circumstances. Along a similar vein, critiquing Burke's consubstantiality for being sexually indifferent, Janice Odom draws from Irigaray's feminist theories to reframe identification as a playground of sexual dominance and surrender.

References
  1. Herrick, James A. (2012). The History and Theory of Rhetoric: An Introduction. New York: Allyn Bacon. pp. 10, 225–226. ISBN 978-0205078585.
  2. Gibson, Keith (2006). "Burke, Frazer, and Ritual: Attitudes toward Attitudes". KB Journal. 3.
  3. Rutton, Kris; Soetaert, Ronald (2014). "A Rhetoric of Turns: Signs and Symbols in Education". Journal of Philosophy of Education. 48 (4): 604–620. doi:10.1111/1467-9752.12081.
  4. Ratcliffe, Krista (2005). Rhetorical Listening: Identification, Gender, Whiteness. Southern Illinois University Press. pp. 69, 75. ISBN 978-0-8093-2669-3.
  5. Ballif, Michelle (2014). Re/Framing Identification. Long Grove: Waveland. pp. 1, 200, 309. ISBN 9781478606710.
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