"[4] Kenneth Burke plays an important part in learning and understanding the core values of rhetorical theory in identification.
Ratcliffe proposes the “blurring of Burke's and [Diana] Fuss's theories of identification," and what becomes visible is multiple places for rhetorical listening.
[9] When applying Burke and Fuss's theories, Ratcliffe proposes non-identification in cross-cultural communication and feminist pedagogy.
Her critique of Western logic is that it is difficult to simultaneously pay attention to both commonalities and differences, but that is where non-identification exists and thus provides a place for rhetorical listening.
Fuss defines Identification as related to the issue of connection between opposite entities, such as the interrelation between self and other, subject and object, and insiders and outsiders.
By way of analyzing the Facebook news feed of “We are all Khaled Said,” Katherine Bridgman expands Burkean identification to “embodiment,”[10] or the mutually coordinated experience between speakers and their audiences triggered by specific circumstances.
Further, she argues that Burke's concept of identification is an abstract ideal that may not recognize power imbalances or account for marginalized persons and communities.
Douglas Downs compares identification to a rhetor holding up a mirror image to the audience that reflects their core values and beliefs.
Identification relies on the identities of both the speaker and listener, it causes the audience to develop a deeper trust for the author which makes it more likely for them to take the same position.