The components of a speech event are its setting, the participants
and their role relationships, the message, the key (see key^1 ) and the
channel.
The term speech situation is sometimes used instead of speech event, but
usually it refers to any situation which is associated with speech, e.g. a
classroom lesson, a party.
A speech situation may consist of just one speech event, e.g. two people
meeting in the street and having a brief conversation, or it may contain a
number of speech events, some going on at the same time, e.g. a large
dinner party.speech marker n
a linguistic feature which may give an indication of the speaker’s age, sex,
ethnicity or social group. A speech marker could be a particular sound,
e.g. the pronunciation of /r/ in New York, or /ei / in today in Australia. It
could be a syntactic structure, e.g. between my husband and I/me, or
a word or expression.
see also variable^1
speech pathology n
the study of abnormalities in the development and use of language in chil-
dren and adults (such as stuttering and aphasia). Speech pathology
includes the diagnosis of such disorders and the development of techniques
(including clinical techniques) to treat them. Speech therapists (see speech
therapy) are sometimes called speech pathologists or speech-language
pathologists, especially in the USA.
speech perception n
see perception
speech rate n
another term for rate of speech
speech reading n
another term for lipreading
speech recognition n
software that allows a computer to receive input through audio rather than
through the keyboard or mouse. Limited in application for a long time due
to cost and technical difficulties, this type of software now holds particular
promise for second language teaching.
see also listening comprehension
speech recognition