The phrase "act of speech" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to refer to the act of speaking or the performance of verbal communication.
Example: "The act of speech is fundamental to human interaction and understanding."
Alternatives: "speech act" or "verbal expression".
Sometimes I would overhear myself in the act of speech, like a man who suddenly sees himself in a mirror.
His voice was a child's squeak, and it occurred to Louis that there was real bravery in the act of speech.
Despite their shared origins in the mouth, the act of speech and the act of eating do not have much in common.
From a user's point of view, every share, like or comment is both an act of speech and an accretive piece of a public identity.
Here he is describing the act of speech: When you stop to examine the way in which words are formed and uttered, our sentences are hard put to survive the disaster of their slobbery origins.
It is telling that when he did take time off from hosting his show, he did so to make a feature film called "Rosewater," about Maziar Bahari, an Iranian journalist who was imprisoned shortly after appearing on "The Daily Show". His subject was, in essence, being punished for an act of speech and Mr. Stewart, in spite of his nightly beatdowns of the press, admires the profession.
Scientific experiments are always deeds and not merely acts of speech.
Now students worry whether acts of speech or pieces of writing may put them in emotional peril.
The Dialogus' character of Vipstanus Messalla not only acts as a bridge from Tacitus' Histories to the Dialogus, but, more importantly, by his kinship with one of the most infamous delatores (imperial prosecutorial informants), Messalla acts as a bridge between the Dialogus and the Annales; both works share an atmosphere of menace and fear attendant upon acts of speech.
Acts of speech hold power.
Other humans, too, are similes and other acts of speech.
