Questions to consider while listening to an audio document:

1. Context
· What is the date of the recording?
· Was it obtained on or for a specific occasion?
· What is the political, economic, and/or social climate in which this recording takes place?
· What other significant events are occurring (locally, nationally, or internationally) as this document is being created?

2. Speaker
· Who is speaking?
· What is known about the speaker? biography? personality? education? beliefs? experience speaking in this way/for this audience?
· How might this information enhance or detract from the speaker's credibility?

3. Environment
· Where does this recording take place?
· How might its locale affect the speaker? the audience?

4. Audience
· Who (besides the speaker) is present when this recording takes place?
· How might his/her/their presence affect the speaker?
· Who is the intended audience of this document?
· If the audience is present at the time of the recording, what kind of rapport develops between it and the speaker? How does this occur?

5. Technology
· What technologies are available at this time?
· What technologies are being used by the speaker and/or the recorder?
· What are the advantages and/or disadvantages to using these technologies?
· How does the technology affect the quality of the recording?
· How might the technology affect the recording's reception by an audience?

6. Content
· What message(s) is the speaker trying to convey?
· In what form (speech, poem, story, song, dramatic monologue, etc.) is the information presented?
· (How) does the form affect the document's meaning?

7. Language
· Vocabulary: (How) is the speaker's vocabulary influenced by the situation in which the audio document is being created? the audience? the speaker's personal history? (How) does or might the speaker's vocabulary affect the way in which the audience receives what he or she says?
· Dialect or Accent: Does the speaker have a noticeable accent or speak using a specific dialect? (How) does or might this affect the way in which the speaker's message is received?
· Rhetorical Devices (metaphors, similies, alliteration, repetition/refrains, phrasing/sentence structure): Are any of these strategies employed by the speaker? When? Why?