Language as Sensuous Action: Sir Richard Paget, Kenneth Burke, and Gesture-Speech Theory

摘要

This paper offers a somatic genealogy of Kenneth Burke???s dramatism and its related cluster--symbolic action, attitude, identification--by tracing their development in relation to Sir Richard Paget???s theory of Gesture-Speech. Paget???s theory that humans speech derives from the use and development of bodily gestures held Burke???s interest for at least a decade while such crucial concepts were incubating. An examination of Paget???s theory in Burke???s early work offers a newly energized account of Burkean rhetorical theory. Such an account serves as a reminder that speech--and by Burke???s extension, rhetoric--is always a joint performance of body and mind.