ABSTRACT
Kenneth Burke argues, to become more conscious of the structure and function of language as a social instrument. Burke makes clear that he is not interested in abstract discussion on the structure of his dramatistic model, but in the application of five terms to the analysis of symbolic action in society. But, as Burke points out, serious consideration of language in social life requires both an attitude and a method. The attitude, however, must be grounded in the systematic development of the method. The method "would involve the explicit study of language as the 'critical moment' at which human motives take form, since a linguistic factor at every point in human experience complicates and to some extent transcends the purely biological aspects of motivation". A Grammar of Motives is important to the sociologist, but A Rhetoric of Motives is of peculiar significance since it contains a theoretical and methodical statement of how social order arises in and continues through communication.
