WRITTEN LANGUAGE AND THE SENSE OF AUDIENCE

Abstract

This theoretical discussion and model are early fruits of the Schools Council Writing Research Project, which has studied the development of writing ability in the age group 11 to 18. The major results are yet to be published. The model presented below, which seeks to distinguish various types of audience‐orientation in pupils when they are engaged on a piece of written work, and another model which sets out function categories (Britton, 1971), are of interest in themselves. Apart from the use which other researchers may wish to make of them, teachers will find here a proposed new way of understanding their pupils’ written work, and of how writing tasks in school are influenced by the sense of audience. The theory lying behind this model, which occupies the first part of the article, has wide implications for all forms of written communication.