Donna Lecourt, English Department
An audience addressed versus an audience invoked is basically
your real audience versus the reader you create through your text and introduction.
In a way, you tell the reader who you want them to be. In a conference paper I'm
writing, I start off by assuming that we're (the reader and myself) sharing some
presumptions. By saying that, I'm almost telling the reader who I want them to be.
I'm creating an audience position, that "Yes, there exists some reality." But I'm also
trying to create it for people who are going to approach this and say, "Okay there are
things I think we all hold in common. I don't say that in my text, but my text invokes it.
The other audience, the real audience, are those who will be at the conference. Who's at
the conference and who reads the journal are not always the same.
