Introduction to Rhetorical Studies Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Introduction to Rhetorical Studies - Essay Example This essay will examine an example of a symbolic action, identify the audiences, and identify the second and the third persona show what the audience agency is. Language can be used as a symbol Kenneth Burke gives an example where while in class he saw a bird flying up in order to get out of a room. This action of the bird flying up in order to get out is due to tropisms; although the windows were open the bird kept flying nervously about the ceiling. The windows were high, they extended almost to the ceiling; yet the bird kept trying to escape by batting against the ceiling rather than dipping down and flying out of one the open windows (4). This particular bird’s instinct was to escape by flying up; hence it ignored the easy exit through the windows. Burke imagines how different things would be if the bird could speak his language. A simple statement would have served to solve the problem. Fly down just a foot and out one of those windows would have solved the problem if the bird could hear the language of human beings this shows how symbolic language can be. Burke gives another example where a bird uses the principle of leverage as an improved method for Unnesting or de birding a Nest but it cannot spread the information to other birds because of lack of language to communicate the invention and make it spread throughout all birddom. Man is considered to be a symbol-using animal; he clings to a kind of naà ¯ve verbal realism that refuses to realize the full extent of the role played by symbolicity in his notions of reality (Burke, 5). The second persona in the example of the bird is the reader because he is the one representing the pronoun ‘you’. The third persona is the bird because it because it is the one used to depict the pronoun they. The audience agency in the examples of symbolism above is to show clearly how symbolic language can