In “Letter to President Clinton on Iraq,” New American Century (26 Jan 1998), it shows us it is a letter to President Clinton. The writer persuades him about the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime from power.
In Kinneavy’s article, “The Basic Aims of Discourse”, he defines the aim of discourse is meant “the effect that the discourse is oriented to achieve in the average listener or reader for whom it is intended” (297). The implied audience of “Letter to President Clinton on Iraq” is President Clinton for whom the writer sends the letter to, and the intended audience is anyone who read this newspaper.
From what I saw in “letter to President Clinton on Iraq,” it falls into two parts of Kinneavy’s basic purposes of composition, which are referential and persuasive. This letter shows the readers that the writer is providing solutions to problems; in here they suggest the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime from power, which is supported by the experience that monitoring Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons production is difficult, in which it falls into the exploratory part of referential. And in the first sentence of the letter, the writer wrote “we are writing you because we are convinced that…” and after giving some examples of the effect from Saddam Hussein, the writer suggests some policies toward Iraq. The reader can see there is a strong, powerful argument to persuade President Clinton to make such a decision. And in the last two paragraphs, they open with “We urge you to articulate this aim,” “We urge you to act decisively,” in which again is a very strong and powerful way to persuade the President to do action.
As a reader, I found out this letter is very persuasive by putting a lot of strong arguments and examples to support their thoughts which shows the Kinneavy’s genres can be burred. It is not necessary to distinguish the essay into one particular group. Mixing up can tell us the whole picture.
kim, this assignment seems to have a very good point of view. You have distinguished between the two types of readers that writer is constructing. You have done the Kinnevey's part in which you had to tell the aim of the text. By reading your blog, it seems like you are saying that the writers aim is to persuade. However, you need to tell which genre best fits the text. I think you can include more on Kinneavy's principal divisions. I think you can also put more reference to people and place or the time this was written. Also this article also mentioned the United Nations inspection. I think you can pull more out by reading more online. This will help in understanding the article. Also I think, you did a good job of thinking so far and gradually, much can be improved, too.
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