ABSTRACT
Audience has been a significant component of rhetoric since classical times. Plato, in the Phaedrus (370 BCE), asserted that the rhetorician should adapt a speech to the characteristics of an audience, classifying “the type of speech appropriate to each type of soul”. Nevertheless, insights into audience from classical rhetoric remain relevant, in particular Aristotle’s discussion of three persuasive appeals: pathos, the appeal to the emotions of the audience, ethos, the appeal to the credibility of the speaker, and logos, the appeal to logic and reason. The cognitive perspective on audience, building on the work of cognitive theorists such as Jean Piaget (The Language and Thought of the Child, 1926/1959) and Lev Vygotsky (Thought and Language, 1934/1962), viewed the ability to understand audience as a mark of cognitive maturity.
