Terministic Screens

In “Terministic Screens,” Kenneth Burke points out three things that terministic screens do for our understanding of language:

1. “’Terministic screens’ direct the attention” (45).
2. “Not only does the nature of our terms affect the nature of our observations, in the sense that the terms direct the attention to one field rather than to the other” (46).
3.  “’Reality’ could not exist for us, were it not for our…involvement in symbol systems” (48).

Basically, terminsitic screens provide the reader with a window to view the different uses of language, some that may be unfamiliar.  I, of course, picked out “symbol” from Burke’s third assertion (“’Reality ‘could not exist for us, were it not for our…involvement in symbol systems”). 

Throughout the semester, we learned that symbols shape our language system.  It is very imperative for the reader to realize that symbols and terministic screens are not the same; symbols rely on terministic screens.  The terministic screens interpret the symbols.

Work Cited

Burke, Kenneth. “Terministic Screens.” In Language as Symbolic Action: Essays on Life, Literature, and Method. Berkeley: U of California P, 1966. 44-57.