Audience

Theresa May delivered her “Lancaster House speech” at the old mansion of Lancaster House in London on 17 January 2017. Because of the importance of its topic, this speech was televised and transcribed. Important news media such as The Telegraph and The Independent published the speech on their websites including a video link for the televised version. It was equally made available in both formats at the official website of the British government. This means that the speech was deliberately made accessible to a wide audience.

As mentioned in the Topic section, Brexit has sparked a heated debate in both the UK and the EU, and led to substantial disagreement. So, May is very well aware that she needs to address several and very different target groups in her speech - preferably without offending or disappointing any of them.

Her speech as a whole is aimed at a double target group: the EU and the UK. The UK group may be divided into two main parties: those in favour of leaving the EU and those wanting to remain. May gene...