When I think of an audience the first thing that comes to mind is a gathering of people. The aim of whoever addressing the audience is to covey their message and establish some level of understanding in them on the topic of conveyance. An audience is like a crowd that is being addressed on something, maybe some of the crowd members are very interested in what is being said and maybe some aren’t. But to get the information through to the audience it need not be based solely on their interests.
I’m not the best when it comes to geography, especially when its about types of soils and the kind of crops grown in them, so in a lecture on that topic I would definitely qualify as the “not so interested” member of the audience. So, I sat down grudgingly, waiting for the class to end. I however, surprisingly, understood every part of the chapter. The lecturer matched the wavelength of the entire class and let us take breaks in between so we could absorb all the information, she would lighten the room with suitable jokes that were all within context and still managed to cover the portions required that class. I along with the majority of the class had no intent on liking or comprehending anything about soils and crops but our lecturer translated it to us in such a way that we were able to understand everything. She changed the way that she usually teaches to suit the atmosphere of the class and to reach the students minds, because she knew what her audience was like, a classroom full of young, easily bored students, forced to take geography, and she took advantage of their interests and adapted her teaching method to make the dry topics more understandable and to reach the audience (the aim of any discourse).
Anzalduas article was personal and I enjoyed reading her work. She struck certain chords that I too, being bilingual, related to on a very strong level. Anzalduas began in a dentists office and took a turn from a normal routinely root canal into an extensive report on the different types of Spanish speaking people in the united states and how they’ve adapted and been forced to adapt their language to be understood and heard. The Spanish speaking people like any cultural or ethnic group are not stagnant and have inhabited places not originally or natively their own. Naturally there ought to be barriers, language appeared to be the biggest for Anzaldua. She says that she would have to change the way she spoke her native tongue with other people of her own race to not be judged or looked down upon. To convey what she wanted to convey she would have to adjust to her “audience” which was who she was talking to. So if she wanted to be understood by a Latino/Latina or a pure speaking Spanish member what she wanted understood would not completely be interpreted by them if she spoke the way she speaks with her friends.
Similarly in writing, I think audience plays a major role in the way what is being put out on paper is understood. Depending on the characteristics of the audience, the articles will be reached in the corresponding magnitude. Newspapers and magazines for this very reason have several pages on various issues, and anyone can pick them up just to read their area of interest. There are also many publications selling books and articles about the stocks and shares and their variations, only the business and economically inclined people would be interested in reading such works, and would be the most learned to understand the jargons used there. Or the film buffs who are slightly more interested in the latest Hollywood blockbuster or superstar scandal. For them there are magazines dedicated to decoding the plots and twists of everything cinema related.
Therefore to reach the audience, interest is important but it is not the main focal point of the discussion. Anzaldua made audience seem like a small obstacle or hurdle that can be easily jumped over by adjusting ourselves, to get our point through. But in doing so we lose a bit of ourselves and a bit of what we want understood. The way we speak, the way we want to speak, what we say, what we want to be understood, are all different from one another and must be done very differently from how we imagine to be successful in our pursuit of being understood.
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