Speech Analysis: Definition, Research, and Social Practice
ITEM 5
Analysis of Speech
Introduction
The speech is presented as a social practice which applies and compares different analytical uses. It aims to show the shortcomings of a discursive analysis that ignores the presence of the subjects and their social context in the production and interpretation of the text.
1. Definition of Speech
Defining speech is not an easy task, given the ambiguity of the terms that define it.
Firstly, as a language understood (political, legal, administrative, etc.), speech is a mediation: we express ourselves and express to others.
So, speech as language reveals two aspects:
- The speech as a predicate (part of a sentence)
- Speech-like communication situation: circumstances in which the sentence has meaning.
In this sense, the words ‘arranged’ and ‘text’ are interchangeable and are used similarly but sometimes in a confused way.
The term ‘text’ is understood as writing (reading a text) and ‘speech’ as language skills (there is a speech to the listener), but the differentiating feature does not disregard the written text of a speech.
Here too, we must consider the text as a static expression and fixed while the speech is alive and dynamic.
But the text makes sense within an interpersonal dialogue where words and their meaning refer to circumstances or personal situations of the subject who speaks and beyond what is said or preached. For this reason, the text (as preached in the speech) is understood as an object produced by someone who can be observed and interpreted from different points of view, but never from all sides at once. Ex: shoot! (different contexts, different interpretations, different points of view: hunting, listening, photo, …)
After these considerations, the text should be regarded as the material expression of speech.
Another problem that arises for the definition of discourse is the medium (in which it appears) and format (unit that contains it), to the extent that speech is language, and as (support) means of expression can occur from other non-verbal language. It is spoken not only with words but with images, custom, etc. And as the speech ranges from the prayer to the set of sentences, defining the internal coherence and consistency in expressing that unit.
Despite all the difficulties of the definition, we can specify the address as an object of research where the study and understanding of social reality.
2. Speech and Qualitative Research Techniques
The dominant social discourse has an empirical value in the work as product research and fieldwork. The various methods and practices of social research and intervention are instruments designed to produce certain information for analyzing discursive reality under study. The resulting product of that communication experience is the result of a dialogue between researcher and subject in the investigated object framework of a conversation or observation regarding scientific or social purposes.
Any behavior or human action is likely to communicate or say something that tries to convey such action or other subjects interpret the communicative experience: what does? What do you mean? And who says what, what was said, expresses the intention or effect, is what establishes the fundamental basis of scientific and social research is the comprehensive guidance that uses discourse analysis.
In quantitative research, this feature is lost in translation because the numbers lost the context in which they were given and observed responses (decontextualization).
So, the discourse analysis is directly related to qualitative research since the approach produces a qualitative understanding and interpretation of texts produced by someone in a situation of interpersonal communication.
3. The Address as Social Practice
Speeches are a form of social practice and are more than simple language (verbal or not) for the words or expressions that make up a speech with intent and ability to modify or change the social reality in which they are pronounced or apparent (i.e.: the judge says the meeting is adjourned, the act does not distinguish the words spoken).