Page 377 - Gabrijela Kišiček and Igor Ž. Žagar (eds.), What do we know about the world? Rhetorical and argumentative perspectives, Digital Library, Educational Research Institute, Ljubljana 2013
P. 377
stakeholders in promotional genres:
a rhetorical perspective on marketing communication 377
hearer in two-person talk is necessarily also the ‘addressed’ one, that
is, the one to whom the speaker addresses his visual attention and to
whom, incidentally, he expects to turn over the speaking role” (Goff-
man, 1979: 132–133), while in encounters in which three or more of-
ficial participants are found, “it will often be feasible for the current
speaker to address his remarks to the circle as a whole, encompassing
all his hearers in his glance, according them something like equal sta-
tus. But, more likely, the speaker will, at least during periods of his
talk, address his remarks to one listener, so that among official hearers
one must distinguish the addressed recipient from ‘unaddressed’ ones”
(Goffman, 1979: 133). And this is a very common situation in commu-
nication, as well as situations in which bystanders and overhearers are
involved:
[…] much of talk takes place in the visual and aural range of persons who are
not ratified participants and whose access to the encounter, however mini-
mal, is itself perceivable by the official participants. These adventitious par-
ticipants are ‘bystanders’. Their presence should be considered the rule, not
the exception. In some circumstances they can temporarily follow the talk,
or catch bits and pieces of it, all without much effort or intent, becoming,
thus, overhearers. In other circumstances they may surreptitiously exploit
the accessibility they find they have, thus qualifying as eavesdroppers, here
not dissimilar to those who secretly listen in on conversations electronical-
ly (Goffman, 1979: 132).
Combining the original classification of stakeholders developed in
the management field, the one elaborated from scholars dealing with
a websites production, Goffman’s roles of participants in communica-
tion, adding the category of gatekeeper highlighted by media sociolo-
gy, and applying them to written communication in organizations, we
obtain the classification of eight different stakeholder roles of a text:
the principal, the author, the animator, the addressee, the ratified par-
ticipant, the overhearer/bystander, the gatekeeper, and the regulator
(Table 1).
In the following, on the basis of an example, we will show that the
description of the stakeholders of a text according to this classification
can clarify and describe in a richer way the communicative situation of
promotional texts.
a rhetorical perspective on marketing communication 377
hearer in two-person talk is necessarily also the ‘addressed’ one, that
is, the one to whom the speaker addresses his visual attention and to
whom, incidentally, he expects to turn over the speaking role” (Goff-
man, 1979: 132–133), while in encounters in which three or more of-
ficial participants are found, “it will often be feasible for the current
speaker to address his remarks to the circle as a whole, encompassing
all his hearers in his glance, according them something like equal sta-
tus. But, more likely, the speaker will, at least during periods of his
talk, address his remarks to one listener, so that among official hearers
one must distinguish the addressed recipient from ‘unaddressed’ ones”
(Goffman, 1979: 133). And this is a very common situation in commu-
nication, as well as situations in which bystanders and overhearers are
involved:
[…] much of talk takes place in the visual and aural range of persons who are
not ratified participants and whose access to the encounter, however mini-
mal, is itself perceivable by the official participants. These adventitious par-
ticipants are ‘bystanders’. Their presence should be considered the rule, not
the exception. In some circumstances they can temporarily follow the talk,
or catch bits and pieces of it, all without much effort or intent, becoming,
thus, overhearers. In other circumstances they may surreptitiously exploit
the accessibility they find they have, thus qualifying as eavesdroppers, here
not dissimilar to those who secretly listen in on conversations electronical-
ly (Goffman, 1979: 132).
Combining the original classification of stakeholders developed in
the management field, the one elaborated from scholars dealing with
a websites production, Goffman’s roles of participants in communica-
tion, adding the category of gatekeeper highlighted by media sociolo-
gy, and applying them to written communication in organizations, we
obtain the classification of eight different stakeholder roles of a text:
the principal, the author, the animator, the addressee, the ratified par-
ticipant, the overhearer/bystander, the gatekeeper, and the regulator
(Table 1).
In the following, on the basis of an example, we will show that the
description of the stakeholders of a text according to this classification
can clarify and describe in a richer way the communicative situation of
promotional texts.
