Purpose and Audience

In the speeches ,"This is Water" by David Foster Wallace, and ,"Morrison Nobel Lecture” by Toni Morrison, the purpose and audience are reflected through the tone and vocabulary that the authors uses. In “This is Water” the author’s target audience is to a group of graduating college students, so he talks about life as an adult and how we need to be “aware of our simple surroundings”. Because Wallace is addressing college graduates, his tone and vocabulary is casual, so that his audience can grab the information without thinking too much about it. Wallace uses terms like “frustrating crap” and phrases like “fat, dead-eyed, over-made-lady” to describe certain situations which would not be normally used in a formal speech. “Morrison Nobel Lecture” on the other hand had a more serious tone. The target audience is more towards serious people who are there to hear a sophisticated speech. Morrison’s speech tells a story, but instead of giving advice on life, Morrison talks about the importance of language and how important it is that we prevent it from going “dead”. Morrison’s speech is also to show the audience that it was possible for her to win the Nobel Prize. Both authors’ speeches are written to cater to their specific audience. Whether it’s to a group of college students about to head into the real world, or to a large group of people who are just there to listen to someone’s prize speech. Both authors’ speeches reflected the certain style to fit their audience.