ABSTRACT
conversations that constitute human history. In the words of literary critic, Kenneth Burke (1941/1973):
long preceded you and they are engaged in a heated discussion, a discussion too heated for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is about. In fact, the discussion had already begun long before any of them got there, so that no one present is qualified to retrace for you all the steps that had gone before. You listen for awhile, until you decide that you have caught the tenor of the argument; then you put in your oar. Someone answers; you answer him; another comes to your defense; another aligns himself against you.… The discussion is interminable. The hour grows late, you must depart. And you do depart, with discussion still vigorously in progress, (pp.110–111)0
