Burke's Pentad

Burke, the author of Definition of Man, uses five terms, called the “dramatistic pentad,” to think about language. Treating language as a vehicle for action rather than information allows him to determine human motivation using the pentad.
The terms correspond to basic interrogatives. Act: what does the person do? To qualify as an act it must have intent behind it. Agent: who performs the act? This can be a larger social group. Agency: how is the act performed? Scene: when and where is the act performed? This also includes circumstances. Purpose: Why was the act committed? This is not the motive that Burke is looking for. Burke also struggled with the concept of attitude and considered using it to form a sixth domain but instead placed it within the scope of the agent.
Burke claims the motive can only be discovered by examining each term and its relationship with the remaining terms. This makes ten possible combinations of terms. Each combination should be viewed as a ratio. The ratio has two possible sequences; for example, act and agency can be thought of as act/agency or as agency/act. The analyst would consider first how act can influence agency. Then the analyst switches the ratio and examines how, for instance, the agency can ifluence the act. This system allows us to consider one rhetorical act from 20 different angles. Analysis may lead to the conclusion that one term disproportionately influences the other terms. Then the interpreter can frame the motivation as being attributed primarily to that term. So we can see how purpose differs from motivation. Although the agent always has a purpose, our analysis may reveal that the act was primarily motivated by the scene, act, agency, or agent.
The pentad is a result of Burke’s thinking about language as being motivated rather than simply animated. To be animated, like animals and clocks, requires motion. Human action also requires motion, but to qualify as action it must also be imbued with purpose. Burke is not comfortable with reducing symbolic action to mere motion and uses the dramatistic pentad to illustrate whatever drives the rhetoric.