Speech and Communication

What is a speech? A speech is a “formal discourse in public”. “Almost any speech act is really the performance of several acts at once, distinguished by different aspects of the speaker's intention: there is the act of saying something, what one does in saying it, such as requesting or promising, and how one is trying to affect one's audience.” In general, a speech is the act of delivering a formal spoken communication to an audience.

A speech is a way of communication, which is distinct from other means of communication like conversations or small talks. To deliver a speech is to express a certain attitude, and the type of speech being performed corresponds to the type of attitude being expressed. For example, a statement expresses a belief, a request expresses a desire, and an apology expresses a regret. A speech usually intends to lay an effect on the listeners rather than simply being understood. When a president makes his inauguration speech, he is targeting on supports from the whole nation in his future work; when a general addresses his army, he is seeking the confidence and courage of his soldiers; when a leader of movement makes speeches to the public, he is expecting that more civilians will realize the social problems and fight for a better life through unremitting endeavor.

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In a speech one generally expects more than just to communicate--getting the audience involved. The addressor intended to produce some effect on the listener. Generally speaking, speeches are distinguished primarily by the type of attitude expressed, such as asserting, requesting, promising and apologizing. The purpose of a public speech is trying to get the hearer to form some correlative attitude and in some cases to act in a certain way. For example, a statement expresses a belief and normally has the further influence of getting the addressee to form the same belief. We usually hear speeches of this kind in a cathedral or a party congress. They are always related to religions and politics. In the 1st century, Jesus propagates his follower the faith of Christianity. And now, during the presidential election, Bush and his opponent are promoting their politics respectively. A request expresses a desire for the listener to do a certain thing and normally aims for them to intend to and, indeed, actually do that thing. During the fight against flood in 1998, President Jiang Zeming announced the determination of the party and called the army to struggle against the flood until the day of victory. This kind of promise expresses the speaker's firm intention to do something, together with the belief that by his utterance he is obligated to do it, and normally aims further for the addressee to expect, and to feel entitled to expect, the speaker to do it. When one apologizes, for example, one may intend not merely to express regret but also to seek forgiveness. Seeking forgiveness is, strictly speaking, different from apologizing, even though one speech is the performance of an act of both types. As an apology, the speech succeeds if it is taken as expressing regret for the deed in question, just like the speech President Bush delivered after the shuttle of Colombia had lost. In his speech, he expressed his sincere regret for the family of the astronauts on behalf of the nation; as an act of seeking forgiveness, it succeeds if forgiveness is thereby obtained. We’ve once heard one speech of its kind by Clinton after the USA’s attack on Chinese consul with missiles in Yugoslavia.

Webster’s 1913 Dictionary.

Kent Bach, Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry SPEECH ACTS

Bach, K. and R. M. Harnish (1979), Linguistic Communication and Speech Acts, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.