Longman Dictionary of

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speech situation n
see SPEECH EVENT
speech styles n
alternative ways of speaking within a community, often ranging from
more colloquial to more formal. Usually, the range of styles available to
a person varies according to his or her own background and the type of
SPEECH COMMUNITY. The choice of a particular style has social implications.
For example, choosing a formal style in a casual context may sound
funny and using a very colloquial style in a formal context, such as in a
sermon at a funeral service, may offend. Generally, a native speaker
knows when a certain speech style is or is not appropriate (see APPROPRI-
ATENESS).
Two types of rules which are connected with speech styles are cooccurrence
rules and alternation rules. Co-occurrence rules determine
which linguistic unit may follow or precede, that is, “co-occur with”,
another unit or units. For example:
formal style: I should most certainly like to attend your ball, Sir
Reginald.
colloquial style: I’d love to come to your do, Reg.
Alternation rules determine the possible choice of “alternatives” from a
number of speech styles or stylistic features which are at the speaker’s disposal,
e.g.
formal style: Good morning, Mrs Smith . . .
semi-formal style: Hullo . . .
colloquial style: Hi, Penny . . .
speech synthesis n
the automatic synthesis of speech-like sounds by a computer using a
speech synthesizer or voice synthesizer, such as when a computer takes
printed text as input and produces a spoken version of it. Many of the
recorded messages heard on the telephone are not natural language but
are produced by speech synthesis.
see also DIGITIZED SPEECH, COMPUTATIONAL LINGUISTICS
speech synthesizer n
see VOICE SYNTHESIZER
speech therapy
speech therapy n
activities and exercises which are designed to help to alleviate or cure a
language or speech defect (e.g. stuttering) or to help someone to regain
their use of speech after having suffered speech loss (e.g. after a stroke).
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