Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Audience Addressed/Audience Invoked

In their quest to prove the relationship between reading and writing and to emphasize the "creative, dynamic duality" of the two, Lisa Ede and Andrea Lunsford rely on the writings and theories of other scholars on the topic of audience. Specifically, their piece "Audience Addressed/Audience Invoked: The Role of Audience in Composition Theory and Pedagogy" questions those who favor emphasizing "the concrete reality of the writer's audience" and "share the assumption that knowledge of this audience's attitidues, beliefs, and expectations is not only possible but essential" (known as Audience Addressed) as well as those who favor Audience Invoked. This theory Ede and Lunsfort say refers those who "stress that the audience of a writen discourse is a construction of the writer, a "created fiction"(quoted from Long, p. 225)."

Mitchell and Taylor are two Audience Addressed theorists who Ede and Lunsford both agree and disagree with. They do not like Mitchell and Taylor's argument because they believe Mitchell and Taylor put too much emphasis on the role of the audience than on the writer. While acknowledging Mitchell and Taylor's emphasis on the creative role of readers, Ede and Lunsford say they still fail to recognize the "equally essential role writers play throughout the composing process."

Ede and Lunsford address Ong's audience invoked approach as well. According to Ede and Lunsford, "teachers of writing may err if they uncritically accept Ong's statement that "waht has been said about fictional narrative applies ceteris paribus to all writing." (quoted from p. 17)." I agree with Ede and Lunsford in their argument that writers must invite their audience to be seen as the writer sees them. They write, "Writers who wish to be read must often adapt their discourse to meet the needs and expectations of an addressed audience." However, writers may also be required to respond to comments and suggestions from their audience, they say. Finding a balance between the invoked audience and the addressed audience is most important for Ede and Lunsford, and makes most sense to me as well.

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