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Shevantai Gooden, Amir Arnold and Adreana Clarke

Dr. Cantice Greene

English 1101

13 February 2022

Rhetorical Reading Response (Context)

    In the personal narrative “Context” (1994) by Dorothy Allison, the author explores the use of the English Language in different contexts. Allison shows that there are different contexts of speaking by giving evidence from her personal life. The author supports her thesis by giving quotes from the people who spoke around her. The author provides these quotes in order to convince her readers of the point she is bringing forth. The intended audience of this narrative is a general audience.

    I felt a feeling of comfort after reading this essay. My reason for feeling this way is because I can relate to her feeling of uncertainty when introducing important persons in her life to each other. When preparing to introduce her lover to her family, the uncertainty came from not knowing what to expect from either party. I also related to the fear she felt as a child when trying to correct the behaviors of adults. Her uncle had said something disrespectful about the store attendant and she felt fearful to tell the man that she was sorry for her uncle’s behavior, even though she knew that it was the right thing to do.

    The author’s thesis that there are different contexts of speaking was portrayed when she quoted her girlfriend saying, “It’s a kind of a dialect, isn’t it,” (Allison), referring to the way the author’s aunt spoke. This quote from the text showed that even though the author’s aunt was speaking English, she spoke it in such a way that it was hard for her girlfriend to understand. The sentence, “I couldn’t understand one word in four of anything your aunt said,” (Allison) convinced me to believe the author’s thesis because it showed that Allison’s lover did not speak in the same context Allison’s family did. Allison argued her point that context is important in the essay when she said, “Context is so little to share, and so vital” (Allison). Another text from the narrative, “what context did he have for people like us” (Allison), shows that the man behind the counter may not have understood her apology, meaning, he may not have caught it in the same context Allison intended it. This shows that it is important to know the proper context in which others speak, because if we don’t, we lose the intended meaning behind the words we hear. The author repeated the word “context,” (Allison) throughout the essay to develop her points and to persuade her audience to believe her thesis. It can be concluded from the narrative that this was written for a general audience because this text was published as a book. The author didn’t try to gear her writing toward a specific audience, she just wanted everyone to be aware of the context in which they spoke. This is also shown in when the writer said, “context is so little to share, and so vital,” (Allison).

Allison, Dorothy. "Context." Connections: Guide to First Year Writing @ Clayton State University. Ed. Mary Lamb. 6th Edition. South Lake: 2019.