Burke, Kenneth. Language as Symbolic Action

Burke, Kenneth. Language as Symbolic Action: Essays on Life, Literature, and Method. Los Angeles: California UP. (1966).

“Logology’ would be a purely empirical study of symbolic action. Not being a theologian, I would have no grounds to discuss them with regard to their nature merely as language. And it is my claim that the injunction, “Believe, that you may understand,” has a fundamental application to the purely secular problem of “terministic screens.’
The ‘logological,’ or ‘termnistic’ counterpart of ‘Believe’ in the formula would be: Pick some particular nomenclature, some one terministic screen. And for ‘That you may understand,’ the counterpart would be: ‘That you proceed to track down the kinds of observation implicit in the terminology you have chosen, whether your choice of terms was deliberate or spontaneous’ (47).
I’m really unsure about terministic screens. Talk to Dr. Donna.

“We must use terministic screens, since we can’t say anything without the use of terms; whatever terms we use, they necessarily constitute a corresponding kind of screen; and any such screen necessarily directs the attention to one field rather than another. Within that field there can be different screens, each with its ways of directing the attention and shaping the range of observations implicit in the given terminology. All terminologies must implicitly or explicitly embody choices between the principle of continuity and the principle of discontinuity.

So, terminstic screens create the nuances of meaning in language use. The choice of one word over another changes perceived meaning minutely and could sway audience belief in one direction or another.

“In the Poetics, among the resources that Aristotle says contribute to the effectiveness of tragedy as a literary species he lists a sense of the “marvelous” (205).
“Language is taken as “the given.” Man is viewed as the kind of animal that is distinguished by his prowess in symbolic action. The poetic motive is viewed as symbolic action undertaken in and for itself. Just as in being an animal that lives by locomotion, man moves not merely for purposes of acquisition or avoidance but also through the sheer delight in being free to move, so in being the typically symbol-using animal he takes a natural delight in the exercising of his powers with symbols. In extreme cases, we can distinguish between the Poetic and the Rhetorical here when we think of “Art for Art’s Sake” in contrast with deliberative and forensic oratory as discussed in Aristotle, or with the third office of the orator, as discussed in Cicero” (295). ***

“I would assume that rhetoric was developed by the use of language for purposes of cooperation and competition. It served to form appropriate attitudes that were designed to induce corresponding acts (the flectere or movere of Cicero’s third office). But Poetics could be concerned with symbolic action for its own sake, without reference to purposes in the practical, nonartistic realm. It could exploit, to the ends of entertainment, the conflicts that arise among the tribal attitudes. Consider, for instance, how many plays (such as Sophocles’ Antigone) have give poetic pleasure by exploiting variations on the theme of conflict between love and duty” (296).

“But could there not also be a wider application? Many of the topics in the Rhetoric are in effect epitomized situations—and insofar as actions speak louder than words, the topics might also be said to have a corresponding Poetic application. For if a man can mollify us or enrage us by saying gentle or arrogant things respectively, then it is all the more likely that gentle or arrogant conduct can have the same effects. Thus, the poet can produce characters by conceiving of plots in which his puppets (by imitation) do as well as say the sort of things listed in the topics” (297).

Man can encourage rage or mollification through words. Actions of gentility or of rage as well. EMOTION

On Emerson’s “Nature”
“The rhetorical implications of such a dialectic become obvious as soon as we stop to realize, for instance, how such a terministic setup would make a Marxist dialectic impossible, and thus would automatically rule out the corresponding rhetorical ingrediants implicity in the Marxist dialect.
The dialectic of transcendence amounts to a mode of interpretation by treating of empirical things-here-and-now in terms of a Beyond (be this, in its seimplest form, but a way to view terms of lower generalization as inspirited by terms of higher generalization. (299).