Theories of Language and Writing
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This paper is a study of the theoretical evidence supporting the notion of developing questions as a means of increasing a writer's analytical ability and facility for writing clearly. Specific questions that follow a carefully composed framework allow both the writer and the reader the opportunity to study what is being said and how it is being expressed. Questioning encourages both to identify the problem being addressed, develop valid hypotheses regarding a relevant response, collect and analyze data in support of those proposals, synthesize responses, and formulate valid conclusions. In some respects, this type of analysis is an attempt to use scientific methodology to achieve a literary goal. Such an approach involves asking a series of questions prompted by five key concepts. For the journalist, these concepts are most often phrased as who, what, where, when, and how. In Kenneth Burke's groundbreaking theoretical approach, an understanding of the act of communication which he termed dramatism, these five questions are tied to his concept that communication is symbolic, dramatic action. For him, the five concepts lie within understanding the agent, the act, the scene, the agency, and the purpose. Other theorists, especially Howard Bloom and Wayne C. Booth, have studied and expanded on dramatistic methods and other approaches which encourage the writer and the reader to generate questions in order to more clearly understand and analyze what is being communicated.
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rly useful as a method of breaking down a work, especially one that tells some kind of story, into its basic components. Journalists, for instance, use different words - what (the act), who (the agent), where (the scene), how (the agency), and why (the purpose) - to ask the same questions in assuring that their coverage of an event includes all the elements necessary to telling the complete story. Other critics have created methodologies that rephrase the questions. For instance, Jacqueline Berke breaks the analysis down into 20 questions that the writer needs to consider in composing a literary work; nevertheless, her 20 questions are merely detailed subsets of Burke's essential five. Wayne C. Booth observes, "The dramatistic pentad can be used to explore any human action, including action by statement" (114). The pentad can be applied to analyzing oral communication as effectively as it can be used to understand the written word.
Booth quotes Burke: "The dramatistic pentad can be used in many ways. The terms are like blanks to be filled out, and different nomenclatures fill them out differently. All I'm saying is: Look closely enough, and you'll find that they get filled out somehow" (134). Understanding a work requir
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Approximate Word count = 4025
Approximate Pages = 16 (250 words per page)
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