Food and behavior: A Burkean motive analysis of a quasi-medical text

Abstract

Kenneth Burke sought to understand the motives writers establish in the textual scenes they create with a ‘grammar of motives’, which positions an action in one of five motives: the act, the agent, the scene, the purpose, and the agency (means). As discourse analysts shift focus from texts to human action in and through texts, Burke's ‘grammar of motives’ returns as a useful tool for the study of the discursive construction of human action. People who experience reactions due to food allergies commonly attribute them to the ingestion of specific foods. The validity of this attribution is denied, however, on a Web site concerning health and medical information. A motive analysis of this quasi-medical text shows that it is located in a negative means–act ratio, which denies that food (means) can cause human behavior (act)—the scientific view of causation. A comparative motive analysis of the claim that allergies do affect one's behavior is constructed within a positive means–agent ratio. That is, food (means) can affect a person's ability to act (agent). This analysis reveals deeper vested interests of the drug company which sponsors the Web site and of the personal experience and community of the allergy sufferer.