Context
To gain their audience’s trust and accomplish their rhetorical purpose, authors must not only appropriately utilize their persona, but also comprehend the context of the communication. Authors position themselves in relation to their audience based on the relevant interrelational contextual elements that affect the communication situation. Brian Street argues for a broad definition of “context” to include “conceptual systems, political structures, economic processes, and so on, rather than simply a ‘network’ or ‘interaction’”. With this broad definition, he counters Levinson’s narrower definition, which limits relevant contextual elements to immediate and observable events. However one defines “context”, the circumstances of the communication event must be taken into consideration by a persuasive author/speaker. The author’s awareness of the relevant contextual circumstances that influence the delivery of the message, along with knowledge of the subject and clear perception of purpose, is essential to building credibility with the audience, with whom the author must also become familiar.
Read more about this topic: Rhetorical Stance
Famous quotes containing the word context:
“Among the most valuable but least appreciated experiences parenthood can provide are the opportunities it offers for exploring, reliving, and resolving one’s own childhood problems in the context of one’s relation to one’s child.”
—Bruno Bettelheim (20th century)
“The hard truth is that what may be acceptable in elite culture may not be acceptable in mass culture, that tastes which pose only innocent ethical issues as the property of a minority become corrupting when they become more established. Taste is context, and the context has changed.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“Parents are led to believe that they must be consistent, that is, always respond to the same issue the same way. Consistency is good up to a point but your child also needs to understand context and subtlety . . . much of adult life is governed by context: what is appropriate in one setting is not appropriate in another; the way something is said may be more important than what is said. . . .”
—Stanley I. Greenspan (20th century)