Purpose
An author’s understanding of his persona, audience, and context will help him determine the appropriate arguments and rhetorical tropes for achieving his persuasive goal. Authors and speakers can use only the arguments and communication skills available to them to convey their purpose. The arguments available for any given topic are specific to that particular rhetorical situation and depend on the relationships between author, audience, context, and purpose. For example, skilful communicators recognize the wisdom of excluding or including certain information in the scope of their argument or adjusting their tone when addressing X audience versus addressing Y audience. To fully realize their stance, authors and speakers must also exercise control over the rhetorical appeals and arrangement natural to their topic. This step is the most observable event in the author’s achievement of rhetorical stance because it is the verbal expression of his position in relation to both audience and topic.
Read more about this topic: Rhetorical Stance
Famous quotes containing the word purpose:
“How still the evening is,
As hushed on purpose to grace harmony!”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“God sent children for another purpose than merely to keep up the race—to enlarge our hears; and to make us unselfish and full of kindly sympathies and affections; to give our souls higher aims; to call out all our faculties to extended enterprise and exertion; and to bring round our firesides bright faces, happy smiles, and loving, tender hearts.”
—Mary Botham Howitt (20th century)
“Satire exists for the purpose of killing the social being [for the sake of] the true individual, the real human being.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)