University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

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

Hawhee, Debra

Permalink

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/5219

Description

Title
Language as Sensuous Action: Sir Richard Paget, Kenneth Burke, and Gesture-Speech Theory
Author(s)
Hawhee, Debra
Issue Date
2006-11
Keyword(s)
  • rhetoric
  • bodies
  • speech
  • gesture
Abstract
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.
Publisher
Taylor and Francis
Type of Resource
text
Language
en
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/5219

Owning Collections

Illinois Research and Scholarship (Open Collection) PRIMARY
This is the default collection for all research and scholarship developed by faculty, staff, or students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign