The destination is the recipient of the message

The addressee is the recipient of the message, the recipient of the speech, the listener, the interlocutor, the audience, and so on.

The speaker does not turn to space, but to the listener, so the personality of the latter organizes communication. Its various characteristics are important: gender, age, position in society, role function, appearance. On these and other parameters you need to orient your speech so that it is correctly understood. And they are assigned by the addressee. The addressee aspires to be understandable and close to the addressee. Or, on the contrary, it demonstrates its difference from it, its erudition, education, superiority.

The addressee and the addressee are the participants in the communication.

The role of the addressee in the theory of speech acts and genres

Each speech act is focused on a specific model of the addressee and takes into account his communicative interests, the speaker has responsibilities to him. The socio-ethical side of speech and its organization are connected with it.

Speech acts and genres in many respects differ from each other precisely by the fact that they assume different listeners in different situations: request, order, demand, compliment, praise.

Types of recipients

In the sphere of oral official communication, the addressee can be personal or impersonal, single or multiple. In the official personal communication (conversation in the institution, in the police, in the court), the addressee is personal.

Mass communication is very different from all other types of communication. Her addressee is always a lot. Different subtypes of public communication (collective or mass) also have different recipients. Collective communication (report, lecture, speech at the meeting) is addressed to the collective.

On the contrary, in various types of informal communication, speech is addressed to an individual person (regardless of the number of participants in communication).

Changing roles in communication

The addressee is not only a passive listener. Very important is the permanence or inconsistency of the role that the addressee plays in communication. Thus, the conditions of mass communication do not allow him to take the position of the speaker himself. In oral speech in the team such a change of roles is possible within certain limits and varieties: interviews, discussions. Personal official communication allows the conversion of the addressee to the addressee and sometimes even requires it. In an informal setting, even a monologue (an addressee's story about something) always includes elements of a dialogue (that is, it implies a reaction of listeners).

The difference between a mass recipient and a collective

The mass addressee differs from the collective not only quantitatively. The mass addressee is a listener of the mass media - television, radio. He has no opportunity to participate in this communication as a speaker: he can neither agree, nor object, nor interrupt the addressee. Unlike him, the collective addressee is connected with the speaker, although he does not participate in the speech, the roles remain constant. But the collective addressee can in one way or another demonstrate his reaction verbally (screams from the auditorium: "Do not hear, repeat!") Or non-verbal (nods, smiles, laughter, applause, whistles).

Now you know that the addressee is a very important concept!