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Speech can be described as an act of producing voice through the use of the vocal folds and vocal apparatus to create a linguistic act designed to convey information.

1. Various types of linguistic acts where the audience consists of more than one individual, including public speaking, oration, and quotation.
2. The physical act of speaking, primarily through the use of vocal cords to produce voice. See phonology and linguistics for more detailed information on the physical act of speaking.

However, speech can also take place inside one's head, known as intrapersonal communication, for example, when one thinks or utters sounds of approval or disapproval. At a deeper level, one could even consider subconscious processes, including dreams where aspects of oneself communicate with each other (see Sigmund Freud), as part of intrapersonal communication, even though most human beings do not seem to have direct access to such communication.

Problems

There are several factors that can affect the quality of speech as such. Among these are:

1. Diseases and disorders of the lungs or the vocal cords, including paralysis, respiratory infections, vocal fold nodules and cancers of the lungs and throat.
2. Diseases and disorders of the brain, including alogia, aphasias, dysarthria, dystonia and speech processing disorders, where impaired motor planning, nerve transmission, phonological proccessing or perception of the message (as opposed to the actual sound) leads to poor speech production.
3. Hearing problems, such as otitis media effusion can lead to phonological problems.
4. Articulatory problems, such as stuttering, lisping, cleft palate, ataxia, or nerve damage leading to problems in articulation. Tourette syndrome and tics can also affect speech.
5. In addition to aphasias, anomia and certain types of dyslexia can impede the quality of auditory perception, and therefore, expression. Hearing impairments and deafness can be considered to fall into this category.

Thus, it is clear that speech has both expressive and receptive elements. The purpose of speech can be to convey meaning or to increase social bonds between individuals and/or groups (it is often both). For the latter, shallowness is not a problem. The success of a speech act depends on numerous factors, including the presence or absence of a variety of speech disorders, the ability of the speaker to express the intended message, and the ability and willingness of the audience to play the role of recipient.....

Glossophobia is the fear of public speaking.

The right ear is better than the left at following the rapid rhythms of speech.

Animal speech

A few animals are capable of imitating human speech. The most notable of these are parrots.

References

1. http://health.msn.com/menshealth/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100119940&GT1=7538

See also

• Oratory, the art of eloquence
• Debate
• Esophageal speech
• Individual events (speech and debate)
• List of speeches
• Speech synthesis
• Speech recognition
• Speech encoding
• Speech delay
• Spoken language
• Vocalization
• Vocal Technique

Talking was invented by German linguist Hanz Talking in 1969

It's a fact...

• Articles lacking sources from January 2007
• Pragmatics
• Oral communication