Explanation
An expected audience can be influential before anyone responds. A speaker may hear one error as a prediction of complete failure and attend selectively to signs that seem to confirm it. This is one possible loop between self-description, anticipation and participation, not a complete explanation of anxiety. The environment remains part of the inquiry. A pupil who anticipates ridicule may have previously been ridiculed. Explaining everything through an individual's negative interpretation can hide actual exclusion. Equally, a pause or a quiet contribution does not prove anxiety: it can express thought, dissent or a deliberate preference not to speak.
Movement of thought
1. Separate observed events from expected judgements. 2. Specify who is included in “everyone” and what counts as failure. 3. Examine actual responses and possible sanctions. 4. Avoid inferring competence or truthfulness from fluency.
Scientific use case
An educational interaction study can compare reported anticipation with recorded participation and others' responses. It needs independent ethical and methodological safeguards; a constructed example supplies no prevalence or treatment-effect evidence.
Example
Invented classroom case: A prepared pupil mispronounces a term, thinks “They have all stopped listening,” and cuts the answer short. A cough seems confirming. The analyst asks what was actually said and what prior interactions make that inference plausible. Genuine ridicule would require attention to classroom conditions as well as the pupil's account.
Counterexample
Ordinary tension, severe distress and a social anxiety disorder must not be equated. This is a conceptual and communicative analysis, not a therapeutic exercise, screening instrument or promise that a change of wording will resolve distress.
Distinction
Audience is broader than anxiety; silence has many functions; affect does not provide a single diagnostic cause. The narrower phenomenon cannot replace these larger concepts.
Effect on thought and perception
The profile connects audience, affect and self-talk in an everyday situation where evaluation can precede participation. It adds a context-sensitive loop rather than a new general theory of fear.
Resonance
Resonance can mean recognising hesitation without equating it with ignorance. It can also make listeners notice how their own responses shape opportunities to contribute.
Etymology
The English phrase is descriptive. Public speaking anxiety is generally narrower than some uses of communication apprehension, so the labels should not be treated as identical diagnoses.
Provenance
The inherited HWdR article discusses historical and psychological approaches. Its intervention claims are not adopted here as independently checked current clinical recommendations.
Cite this entry
Reich, Michael (Hrsg./ed.): „Speaking anxiety“. Atlas der Sprache, AT-ADD-20261020-0107. ATLAS 261, data model 1.6.0. https://atlasoflanguage.com/concept/AT-ADD-20261020-0107The address remains stable; editorial content may evolve. Editorial reading state: 2026-10-20. Include your access date for precise references.
Guiding question
What has happened, what judgement is anticipated, and how do the two become linked?
Five coordinate questions
These descriptions explain the entry. They are not controlled register values and do not generate shared register results.
- Where can the process be observed?
Invented classroom case: A prepared pupil mispronounces a term, thinks “They have all stopped listening,” and cuts the answer short. A cough seems confirming. The analyst asks what was actually said and what prior interactions make that inference plausible. Genuine ridicule would require attention to classroom conditions as well as the pupil's account.
- What happens to the material?
Separate observed events from expected judgements.
Specify who is included in “everyone” and what counts as failure.
Examine actual responses and possible sanctions.
Avoid inferring competence or truthfulness from fluency.
- At what level does a change occur?
The profile connects audience, affect and self-talk in an everyday situation where evaluation can precede participation. It adds a context-sensitive loop rather than a new general theory of fear.
- What temporal structure is explicitly described?
The steps offer an order of analysis, not an asserted real-time sequence of mental events. Read the particular example sequence separately from the historical development.
- How can the description be tested?
Ordinary tension, severe distress and a social anxiety disorder must not be equated. This is a conceptual and communicative analysis, not a therapeutic exercise, screening instrument or promise that a change of wording will resolve distress.
Historical context
The inherited HWdR article discusses historical and psychological approaches. Its intervention claims are not adopted here as independently checked current clinical recommendations.
Cross-language distinction and terminology
Use speaking anxiety for the selected scope and explain broader technical alternatives. Fluent delivery is not proof of confidence, and a speech difference is not evidence of psychological deficiency.
Scholarly comparisons and distinctions
These entries are editorial comparison anchors for the distinctions made in this article. They are not new canonical relation edges or shared register results.
Proposed thought pathway
- Separate observed events from expected judgements.
- Specify who is included in “everyone” and what counts as failure.
- Examine actual responses and possible sanctions.
- Avoid inferring competence or truthfulness from fluency.
An editorial exploration, not a necessary sequence of thought or experimental evidence of an effect.
Source scope and provenance
Both specialist versions are editorially accepted. The recorded scope of the reference-work research is retained; this is not a fresh full verification of every primary source. Examples and analytical steps are Atlas applications.