Terministic Screens and Classifying Discourse

Burke's "Terministic Screens" and Miller's "Genre as Social Action" come together for me on a lot of levels. Burke discusses the transcendental nature of terministic screens and Miller discusses the classification of discourse and how genres help us to respond in certain ways to certain situations. In a way, terministic screens and genres seem to have a lot of similarites.

In "Terministic Screens" Burke states that everything begins with words. Without words, we would not be able to recognize current, relevant categories, or create new ones for that matter (Burke 47). Miller makes a similar argument in "Genre as Social Action". She states that "classification is necessary to language and learning" (Miller 151). She continues on to say, very much like Burke, that different situations have different types of appropriate conventional forms. Rhetors have learned from past situations what to do and how to act in different types of situations (genres) and how the rhetor's reaction affects others in the situation (Miller 152). It looks to me as though terministic screens are much like genres in their nature. Terministic screens, as I understand them, are sort of like lenses to view different situations and then those situations are transmitted in your brain through the lens as a certain type of recognizable or new type of situation. Something you can recognize and apply prior knowledge to or recognize that you need to apply new knowledge to. Genres seem to be the very same thing, at least in Miller's eyes. Genre and typification is a way to understand socially constructed situations. Genre facilitates communication (Miller 157).

Recently in class we discussed the issue of whether or not terministic screens were limiting or actually help us to transcend polarities and expand our thoughts. In Miller's "Genre as Social Action", the same topic is also discussed and debated. I came to the conclusion in comparing the two theorist's texts that terministic screens and genre both truly promote transcendence. Burke states that we look through various types of media and can either be hindered by the screens (genres) and let them alienate you from the present situation, or the screens can expand our minds and unite us with higher ideals (Burke 52). This is basically saying that we can look at the screens in one of two ways. Either we can see the screens as boundaries, as a frame of reference we cannot escape and let ourselves become restricted by them. Or we can use the screens to transcend, to use them as a typification that encourages constant learning and expansion to understand and create other types of screens (genres). For Miller, "genre refers to a conventional category of discourse based in large-scale typification of rhetorical action; as action, it acquires meaning from situation and from the social context in which that situation arose" (Miller 158). Genres gain context from their social settings. So when social situations change and new situations are created, we can transcend the genre and evolve. Genre doesn't constrain, it helps us navigate through and beyond social situations.

Terministic screens and Genre seem to be almost one in the same, for me. To my understanding, they are both ways to comprehend and act appropriately in social situations. Both facilitate communication and expansion in knowledge, and both can be methods of transcendence.