The Idea of Identification.

• Author: Young, Kelly
• Position: Book Review

The Idea of Identification. By Gary C. Woodward. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003; pp. ix-176. $54.50; $18.95 paper.

Over the last several years, scholars have expressed frustration in applying Kenneth Burke's work to argumentative situations due to his vigorous critique of formal logic and indifference toward argumentative theory (Klumpp, 1993; Levasseur, 1993). However, an emerging recognition of the relationship between argument and the construction of identity has led scholars to revisit Burke's work on identification in or der to understand how identity is shaped within argumentative texts and situations (Hazen & Williams, 1997; McKerrow & Bruner, 1997). This renewed appreciation of the process of identification can offer a "new understanding of the roles and functions of argument, as well as for our evaluation of them" (Hazen & Williams, 1997, p. v).

Gary C. Woodward's The Idea of Identification promises a fresh examination of identification that moves beyond Burke's work to interrogate aspects of the concept previously overlooked and underdeveloped. In particular, Woodward identifies significant barriers to the formation of associations and offers a method by which to estimate the variable strength of identification. According to Woodward, a graduated scale of effects is needed because scholars often assess associative effects in binary terms-identification was either successful or unsuccessful--with out a nuanced ability to describe the force of these associations. Unless we appreciate these levels of intensity, Woodward appropriately contends that the idea of identification "remains descriptively impoverished" (p. 39).

Chapter One tentatively defines identification and briefly reviews works associated with the concept. This review commences with Aristotle's concepts of ethos, topoi and enthymemes and concludes with the linkages between identification, role-taking, audience expectations and the constitution and re-articulation of self-identity in the works of George Herbert Mead, Sigmund Freud, and Erving Goffman. Chapter Two summarizes Burke's view of identification and contends that Burke failed to appreciate identification's limits, including the possibility that it will be achieved only partially. In an effort to correct these shortcomings, Chapter Three derives a means to account for a range of associative effects from constructs in film criticism-specifically, from P. David Marshall's modalities of reception...