Identification Important in Rhetoric

Hey, this is Tira and I'm posting about the concept of identification. In Friday's class, we were talking about Aristotle and his legacy for the Western world (insofar as far as rhetoric is concerned). We covered the five canons of rhetoric, but I only briefly mentioned "identification," not doing justice to its influence on our literacy.


First of all, as mentioned in out text Rhetorical Visions (page 18), identification is Kenneth Burke's concept. Burke was, what academics refer to as, a rhetorician (he lived from 1897-1993). He started writing in the 1930s, and he had two of his most influential works, A Grammar of Motives, and A Rhetoric of Motives, published in 1945 and 1950 respectively--although they were not well received then. (Information taken from Patricia Bizzell and Bruce Herzberg's The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings from Classical Times to the Present). Burke re-published A Rhetoric of Motives in 1969; a good description about Burkean identification is in the first three paragraphs of
Brooke L. Quigley's page from University of Memphis.


We take identification seriously in modern marketing. Note how easily most of us recognize, or think of, certain brands when confronted with certain symbols (though I think they mean "Mc D's" or "Mickey D's" at the bottom of the page). Also, check out one business tool (VALS) that shows advertisers how to appeal to different segments of the population; they can then target ads according to the traits people will identify with! I believe identification is an important rhetorical concept all around, especially because almost all communication involves the use of rhetoric.