Sense of Audience in Written Commun.

Summary: In recent years the concept of audience has emerged as a central theme in many scholarly discussions on the social nature of knowledge construction and dissemination. Current work on the topic is scattered across numerous journals and anthologies in composition, literary studies, reading theory, education, media studies, cognitive psychology, sociology, philosophy and linguistics. This book brings together the best c...urrent original work on the concept of audience in written communication. Firstly examining historical and theoretical perspectives on audience, the contributors explore and synthesize current theories on its shifting and intangible nature as well as the broader context by considering post-structuralist concepts of reader, writer and text. The second part of the book embraces a wide variety of research on audience and serves to illuminate contested theoretical points of earlier chapters. Chapters cover case studies, textual analyses, comparative experimental research and protocol analysis. This is a much-needed original collection for audience and composition theoreticians, researchers and historians as well as for writing teachers of all grade levels. [read more]