Speech and Rhetorical Studies Commons^™

Content And Form In Public Address : An Analysis Of The Relative Influences Of The Major Components Of Speech Upon The Listener, Karen Beatie Olson

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

A speech; whether prepared or impromptu, ought to be a communicative process. For a speech when defined as "discourse delivered to an audience,"(1) is a communicative process by which information may be given and received. Inherent in the phrase "given and received" is the assumption that the speaker anticipates that his listener will understand and respond, and that the speech will be understood as it was intended.

The difficulty present in this "intent - response" theory is the problem of insuring that the listener will understand enough to respond to what the speaker has said. In an effort to ensure …