ABSTRACT
Audience and purpose are fundamental to the writing process. They will have a powerful influence on the linguistic choices you make when you write. The two questions you should keep firmly in mind throughout the writing process, from planning, through draft and revising are: Why am I writing this? And who am I writing for? In the beginning, your purpose may be vague, or you may have several competing purposes in mind. The process writing approach we discussed in the last chapter may help to bring the main purpose into focus. Similarly, the audience may not be clear to you. If you are a student, your audience will probably be restricted to your teachers or perhaps an examiner. This doesn’t mean that the audience will be unproblematic. Some teachers, you’ll know well, and you’ll be able to tailor your piece to their interests and perspectives. Others, you may not know well. In this chapter, you will read an academic conversation between David and a recent graduate. In it the graduate discusses the complexities and problems she encountered with audience and purpose in writing up her thesis and then turning it into an article for publication. We then present a view of writing as problem-solving when tailoring a piece to a particular audience and purpose and give an example from our own writing in relation to the construction of a single paragraph. We discuss the importance of the register variables of field, tenor, and mode in relation to purpose and audience. We also reintroduce the ‘linearity problem’ when making choices about selecting and structuring content for particular purposes and audiences.
