13.2 What Is A Speech?

First, it’s helpful to look more closely at what a speech is, and how differs from other forms of communication. A food vendor at a baseball game might be communicating to a large number of people when he calls out “Hot dogs! Get your hot dogs here!”, but it’s hardly a speech, nor is it likely that you’d use that word to refer to a reporter’s on-air update about a flood. If a “birthday girl” says “Thanks for coming” to the 30 people who showed up to her party, it’s not a speech, but if she goes on to talk for two or three more minutes, it might be. If a politician reads the U.S. Constitution aloud on the Senate floor, that’s not a speech, but the same politician’s prepared statement about the Constitution could be called a speech.

The word “speech” implies:

1. Communication prepared for a specific purpose and perhaps a specific occasion. “Prepared” could mean meticulously word-smithed weeks in advance, or thought up relatively spontaneously (see the description of “Impromptu mode” in the next chapter). Even with an impromptu speech, the speaker is still thinking about purpose; they’re just thinking very quickly.

• • The speech may be given just once, or it may be repeated — but it wouldn’t be repeated unless the same type of occasion arose again (such as a politician’s “stump speech” that they go around delivering at rallies)

2. The speaker has some control over what they say, and is either the originator of the message or is in close contact with the speechwriter. This is why the speaker’s credibility (Chapter 9) is always a consideration.

3. An audience who will pay attention (presumably without interruption).

The length may vary from several minutes to an hour, but speeches longer than that are rare because they are too taxing on the audience.

4. There is an identifiable structure to the message, and a discernible theme. This is not to say that all public speakers are good at this or succeed at it, but they should at least try.

I spell out these criteria because they help identify the elements a speaker needs to think about when preparing and giving a speech. We looked at credibility in Chapter 9, and at audiences and their ability to listen in Chapters 4 and 5, so here I’ll focus most on #1, purpose and occasion, and #4, structure and theme.

I’m assuming for purposes of this chapter that you’ll write and deliver your own speech (i.e., the speech writer and speech deliverer will be the same person), although you may someday end up in a situation where you’re doing only one or the other, in which case it’s worth reading up on the relationship between a speechwriter and their client.^[1] I will also focus on prepared speeches, although I recognize the value of impromptu speeches in terms of overcoming anxiety (see next chapter) and learning “boots on the ground” lessons about how to craft a speech.