西方修辞学视域下的受众解读

Audience Interpretation in Western Rhetoric

对受众的考察从来都是西方修辞学的核心问题之一。早期的受众研究一直没有挣脱信息的单向线性传播模式,只是到了19世纪以后,多元、复杂的受众观才逐渐浮现。多维的受众取代了单一的受众,被动的受众让位于主动的受众,从而使传统的受众概念经受了全新的重构。传统的观点把受众当作是话语试图统辖的对象,而后现代主义则把受众看作是参与修辞话语的构建者,基于此,言者和受众的界限不断淡化,受众开始消解。

The study on audience has been one of the central issues in the Western rhetoric. The early studies had been fettered by the mono-directional pattern of information distribution and only by the end of the 19th century did the view of diversified and complicated audience appear. A multi-faceted audience was substituted for unitary audience, and the passive audience gave way to the active audience. Thus the traditional concept of audience has undergone a total reconstruction. The audience is no longer considered as the object to be controlled but rather as the participant in the construction of rhetorical discourses in line with postmodernism. Hence, the boundary between the rhetor and the audience is fading, with the audience gradually being absent.