Traditionally the term rhetoric has been applied to the education of speakers on public occasions. Modem rhetoric has been characterized by a shift from spoken to written discourse and another shift from emphasis on the rhetor to emphasis on the audience. The purpose of this study is two-fold: to synthesize the major contributions to the study of audience, assessing their usefulness in the teaching of composition, and to analyze rhetorical action by presenting a model which will illuminate the relationship between writer and reader. The heritage of the rhetorical concept of audience can be traced back to the Rhetoric of Aristotle. The analysis of audience found in the Rhetoric can be of great value to students and teachers of written discourse. Aristotle treats rhetoric as an art which can be systematized, and is therefore teachable. Although Aristotelian rhetoric can be useful, it also has limitations for twentieth-century studies
