Abstract:

On Terministic Screen in Kenneth Burke' s View of Language(School of Foreign Languages, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China)Abstract： Burke views language as a symbolic action. Only by virtue of this symbolic system that is constructed by the symbolic actions, can human beings create the complicated language system to convey messages, thus reflecting the beings of nature, human, society and the relations among them. In the symbolic actions of language, each word is permeated with man' s knowledge to nature, society or human himself and soaked with the values of the speech community. Terms, the pioneers of language territory, are framing man'  s knowledge limit as well as continuously extending human knowledge. Based on the linguistic view of dramatism, Burke proposes terministic view, which, to a certain extent, discloses the intricate relations between language, mind and reality. Any term only reflects a certain aspect of the reality and while reflecting the reality, deviation occurs as well. For instance, while reflecting an aspect, it ignores the other and while focusing on a certain feature, it obscures other features. In this sense, what people construct with language is always partial reality instead of the whole. However, either to a speech community or an individual, the terministic screen is not always the same, but rather changes with individualsexpanding, shrinking, twisting or standardizing. So it does for the community. Once this takes place, the terministic screen of the community begins to influence more individuals. In this process, sometimes in isolation and sometimes in association, stability is maintained. While using the symbolic system, we can neither do as some media in some countries to put things upside down, to label others with their stereotyped terms, nor stay where we are, but rather, under the examination of practice, we should continually enrich the connotations of terms, to make a multiperspective reflection of the world and human society so that human language can be clearer and more inclusive.

Key words: dramatism, terministic screen, linguistic view