Translation as Symbolic Action: Kenneth Burke

This paper examines Kenneth Burke’s broad commitment to translation across his impressive work on literature, politics and philosophy. More specifically, I attempt to clarify and bring into focus Burke’s idea of translation in terms of “symbolic action”, an action that is rhetorically-infused and constantly present in all forms of human exchange. This is done first by highlighting the literary and poetic features of Burke’s approach against more quantitative or rigorous models of language and then by considering its possible contributions to the current field of Translation Studies.