Pentadic cartography: Mapping the universe of discourse

Abstract

Does contemporary discourse operate within an open universe that enables discussion of public issues from a broad variety of perspectives? Or, as many social commentators maintain, is the influence of technological rationality so pervasive that it subsumes all points of view to its own terms, thus closing the universe of discourse? In this paper, pentadic cartography is presented as a method for charting the ways terminologies open and close discourse. First, Herbert Marcuse's notion of a closed “one‐dimensional” universe of discourse and his proposed Hegelian dialectical method for opening it are examined. Next, Kenneth Burke's interpretation of the closed universe of discourse and how the dramatistic pentad is used to chart it are described. Pentadic cartography, an application of the pentad for mapping verbal and visual symbolic terrain, is then developed and discussed. It is then used to map both a public discourse (a sixty second television commercial) and a critical discourse (Marcuse's social criticism). The resulting maps—one a large‐scaled, in‐depth map and the other a small‐scaled, more global map—demonstrate the efficacy of pentadic cartography as an instrument for mapping symbolic terrain as well as a way to determine the degree to which terminologies function to open and close discourse. Finally, we outline three advantages of pentadic cartography over less pluralistic, more monistic critical approaches. The conclusion outlines the implications of our analysis and of pentadic cartography as a critical method, including its probable superiority to postmodernism as a way to open the contemporary universe of discourse.