Audience and Presence

The Foss, Foss, and Trapp text addresses many of the major points within Tyteca's and Perelman's theory.  However, one of the most fascinating sections concerns the idea of presence.  Presence occurs when arguers "focus attention on something" (95).  In other words, "the displaying of certain elements on which the speaker wishes to center attention in order that they may occupy the foreground of the hearer's consciousness" (95).  The idea of focusing the audiences attention on something does remain somewhat problematic though because it is tied to the speaker's perceptions of the audience as well as ethical issues.  For instance, one of the examples given in the text is "Caesar's bloody tunic as brandished by Antony" (95).  This physical object allows Antony to establish presence; however, this is also a famously manipulative moment and Antony's perception of the audience is largely negative (i.e. he is moving the mob to violent action).  The idea of presence is very much in keeping with Tyteca's and Perelman's emphasis the speaker's perception of audience.

They believe that every decision a speaker/arguer makes should be audience centered to the extent of the speaker's conception of the audience.  For instance, the nature of the starting point depends entirely upon the audience's position in regards to the speaker's position, but the speaker can only base his understanding of the audience's position by determining whether he is addressing a universal or a particular audience.  A particular audience would require a more specialized approach on the part of the speaker.  For instance, in a tutoring session with a student who has no knowledge of grammar vocabulary I would find a particular and unique starting point--preferably one that avoids phrases like "transitive verb". However, when addressing a universal audience the starting point is largely dependent upon how the speaker conceives of his audience rather than the actual identity of the audience.  Thus, the universal audience is always a speaker centered construct which raises the question of whether or not it is truly helpful in terms of persuasion.  Likewise, this also raises the question of whether or not the universal audience can stand alone.  For instance, it may seem like an academic journal article is arguing toward a universal audience, but really this would not be the case (as evidenced by issues like vocabulary).

I am willing to admit to the possibility that this may be a matter of what the author/arguer/speaker conceives of as "every reasonable being," but in terms of persuasion this would still be problematic (89).