Watch an entire episode of your favorite sitcom. With this episode, apply Burke’s Dramatism to determine the motive of speakers.
Take one scene and identify all five elements of Burke’s Dramatistic Pentad: Act, scene, agent, agency, and purpose. Explain.
Using the pentad, determine why the speaker selected rhetorical strategy to identify with the audience. (The audience would be the receiver of his or her message). In other words can you identify the speaker’s primary motive within this scene? Explain.
What might be any underlying guilt that prompted this speaker to use either mortification or victimage? What did he or she do or say that helped you determine this? Explain.
After completing the three parts above, make an assessment as to how valid you think Burke’s Dramatism is in determining one’s motive in communication.
