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implied audience

Device
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

The implied audience is the person, group, or imagined listener a poem seems to address, even when no audience is named directly.

Detailed Definition
An implied audience is suggested by a poem’s language, tone, references, and level of explanation rather than explicitly identified. A speaker may seem to address a lover, a friend, a social class, a political opponent, future readers, or people who share particular knowledge or beliefs. Recognizing the implied audience helps readers understand why the speaker chooses certain words, arguments, emotions, or forms of address.
Example
Example in poetry:
In Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess,” the Duke speaks to an envoy arranging his next marriage. Although he does not always say “you,” his comments—such as “Will’t please you sit and look at her?”—make clear that he is performing for an important visitor. The envoy is the implied audience for much of the dramatic monologue.
Additional Notes
The implied audience differs from the actual audience: the actual audience is the poem’s real readers, while the implied audience exists within the poem’s imagined situation. It is closely related to the speaker, persona, and dramatic monologue. A poem’s speaker may address an implied audience directly, indirectly, or only through the assumptions made in the language. Do not assume the implied audience is always the reader. A poem may invite real readers to overhear a speaker addressing someone else. Clues to an implied audience include second-person pronouns such as “you,” requests, explanations, shared references, formal or informal diction, and details the speaker chooses to reveal or hide.
Also Known As
Narratee Assumed Listener Intended Hearer Imagined Audience
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