Rhetorical terms · AP English Language, SAT Reading and Writing, ACT Reading
Audience
Audience: The people a text is meant to reach, whose beliefs, values and expectations shape the writer's choices.
By the CollegePrepRoom editorial team · Updated · How we write and check these pages
What it means
The audience is the group the writer has in mind, along with the writer's assumptions about what that group already knows, believes and cares about. Writers often address a primary audience while also anticipating a secondary one, such as a speech to party members that will also be covered by national news.
Many rhetorical choices make sense only in relation to the audience: the level of vocabulary, the examples chosen, how much is conceded, and which values are invoked.
Example
A doctor explaining a new vaccine schedule to other physicians can cite clinical trial data directly. Explaining it to anxious parents, the same doctor might lead with her own children's experience before turning to the data.
On the exam
AP Lang scorers reward commentary that explains how a choice works on the specific audience. Name that audience and the effect the choice has on it.
Lessons and practice questions
Related terms
- Rhetorical situationThe circumstances of a piece of communication: who is speaking, to whom, about what, for what purpose, and in what context.
- PurposeWhat a writer wants a text to accomplish: to persuade, inform, move, warn, defend or call the audience to action.
- PathosAn appeal to the audience's emotions, values or imagination to make them more receptive to an argument.