Analysis of "Persuasion in the Media Age" (part 14)

Persuasion and Language

Creating Social Reality

If you accept the proposition that reality is constructed through our language, then you can understand how important language is in the creation maintenance and the transformation of social reality. We constantly use words to manage our reality and the reality of others. Persuaders seek to create reality for their audience members, maintain current beliefs or transform cultural beliefs to better serve their interests. To better understand this point, let us examine the theories of Kenneth Burke, one of the most influential communication theorists of the 20th century.

Symbol use is fundamental to our definition of persuasion. Burke developed a comprehensive theory called dramatism to describe how humans use symbols. Burke theorizes that language`is a way of acting. When we use words, we engage in action. We "do things" with language. For him, language is not a neutral technology, but one that has great power over those who engage in it. His theory of dramatism provides a complex account of how words operate to induce individuals to identify with each other. 

Symbol Use

Burke said that humans are symbol using animals. Symbols stand for or represent some object or concept and symbols lie at the core of our communication system. Burke provides a rich account of the power, both good and bad, of symbol use. He says that humans create symbols to name things, and these names contain an attitude. An attitude is a learned response to some person object or idea; also, a way of seeing the world that is reflected in our language. It is our emotional state prior to acting. Language reveals our attitudes. In his book The Philosophy of Literary Form, Burke writes that "language is the dancing of an attitude" (1973 p. 9). He says when we use language we are "choosing from among magics."

Language has within it these features that give it power:

•    One of the features inherent to language is the negative, the linguistic act of saying somethings is not something else.
• Another implicit aspect of our language use is that we are "goaded by an aspect of hierarchy" (Burke, 1966, p. 16). When we use language to differentiate between people, places or things, we inevitably create structures in which one word has a higher place or standing than others. Thus our language creates hierarchies or social structures. For example, in school one can be a freshman, sophomore, junior, or senior. 
• Perfection is the desire to take ideas or actions to the extreme
• Guilt is a psychological feeling of discomfort that arises when order is violated and it is an inevitable result of our language use. We have just discussed three sources of guilt: the negative, hierarchy and perfection. All three produce guilt because of symbol use. The negative creates guilt because it specifies moral action. Our language specifies what we should and should not do. When we do what our language says is wrong, we experience guilt. We also experience guilt because of our place in the hierarchy. If we do not achieve success or if we somehow violate the rules of the hierarchy, we experience guilt. Guilt also arises when we do not achieve perfection - and sometimes when we do. When we take something to its extreme, we may feel guilt because we have injured someone along the way.

• For Burke, the primary function of symbolic acts is to produce identification. Identification occurs when we share a similar way of viewing the world with someone else. Consider an advertisement for a fitness club. Advertisements for exercise clubs often use guilt to induce its audience to join the club and achieve their fitness goals. The use of negative in this ad, as well as its appeal to perfection, would make you feel guilt about not being a member of this club. Toward the end of the ad, the club would likely provide information about how to join. We would then identify with the club and its way of seeing the world. You would share motives with the fitness club and would join the club to rid yourself of the guilt caused by not being a member.

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