Identification and Humanizing and Dehumanizing Rhetoric

A central theme that emerged in the analysis of this study was the use of humanizing rhetoric, and the fundamental rhetorical concept underlying humanizing rhetoric was identification. Identification is a concept theorized by the influential rhetorician Kenneth Burke. In this chapter, I explicate Burke’s theory of identification and review the literature on humanizing and dehumanizing rhetoric. This chapter lays the conceptual groundwork for understanding the analyses in Chaps. 5 and 6.