In contradistinction to social scientific theories of communication, this dissertation poses the philosophical question of why humans communicate to begin with. Drawing on the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan (1966/2006), it is argued that human being communicates not merely due to a need to overcome its separation from other human beings. Rather, it is argued that because language splits it into self and other, human being communicates due to an unconscious desire to overcome its separation from itself. The self-alienating cause of the subject of communication is explained via Lacan's theory of the dialectic of identification and the effect of symbolization. Three studies of visual communication are offered (on evil, ethics, and the event of being) to illustrate how the symbolic content of expressive media is tied irrevocably to the question of what it means to be human. In so doing, the direct relevance of psychoanalysis to the study of media and communication is demonstrated.

A Kenneth Burke Lexicon is a lexiconographical study of select terminology in Kenneth Burke's nine major works published during the period from 1931 to 1972: Counterstatement, 1931; Permanence and Change: An Anatomy of Purpose, 1935; Attitudes Toward History, 1935; The Philosophy of Literary Form, 1941; A Grammar of Motives, 1945; A Rhetoric of Motives, 1950; The Rhetoric of Religion: Studies in Logology, 1961; Language as Symbolic Form: Essays on Life, Literature, and Method, 1966; and Dramatism and Development , 1972. This study is intended to be used as a pedagogical tool to assist in the teaching and reading of Kenneth Burke. It is comprised of a lexicon of 755 terms and their definitions derived from 4236 textual references. The terms have been selected on the basis of the degree of difficulty they present to the reader. The definitions of these terms are largely composed of Burke's own words in order to more objectively and authentically elucidate and define his complex terminology. In addition to defining terms, the lexicon has employed a methodological approach suggested by Dr. Jane Blankenship of “charting terms.” Such charting provides a fourfold definition: (1) after a summary definition, it (2) undertakes an extended definition to (3) present a history of definitions which (4) charts the evolution of the term over time. By so doing, the lexicon allows the reader the opportunity to look up any given term encountered in reading Kenneth Burke and contextualize it in relation to all of Burke's other major works.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Alberta, 2010. / Title from PDF file main screen (view on July 15, 2010). "A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Department of Music, Department of Sociology ... Spring 2010, Edmonton, Alberta". Includes bibliographical references.