John Nash – 1994 Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech

In his celebratory speech, John Nash demonstrates the communication model in progress because it has a clear sender, receiver, message, and context. John was nominated for the Nobel Prize in economics for his concept known as “Nash equilibrium.” At the Nobel Prize Ceremony, in Stockholm, Sweden, in December 1994, John delivers his acceptance speech while he directly addresses his wife Alicia. John the sender established his ethos by crediting his belief that “numbers, equations, and logic are the key to reason.” Although he is an expert, he rhetorically questions his audience on what those components to reason really mean. At this point, Alicia is the immediate receiver who is apart of a larger audience as well.

In his message, it is important that one understands that John deals with schizophrenia, and he has achieved so much despite his adversity. Setting aside all of his great accomplishment, John believes that love is the true means to find reason. At the end of the speech, in the context of the Nobel Prize Ceremony, he honors Alicia because “she is the only reason he is there tonight.” Without Alicia, John would not have been able to manage his hallucinations because it was her who showed him that “love is reality.”

In this communication situation, the message is responsible for the effectiveness of his speech. Though his message, he was able to not only immediately address his wife, but also he connected his larger audience by explaining his journey to find reason. By his signs, he was capable of conveying his emotional experience of dealing with schizophrenia while still using symbols numbers and equations for which is the reason he is standing delivering his speech. Also, it is the noise of his audience through their applause by which it is known that his message was effectively decoded.