allocution

noun5

1. •
   A formal speech, especially one which is regarded as authoritative and forceful.

   • The Minister of War, in a barrack-square allocution to the officers of the artillery regiment he had been inspecting, had declared the national honour sold to foreigners. — 1904
2. •
   A pronouncement by a pope to an assembly of church officials concerning a matter of church policy.
3. •
   (US) The question put to a convicted defendant by a judge after the rendering of the verdict in a trial, in which the defendant is asked whether he or she wishes to make a statement to the court before sentencing; the statement made by a defendant in response to such a question; the legal right of a defendant to make such a statement.
4. •
   (US) The legal right of a victim, in some jurisdictions, to make a statement to a court prior to sentencing of a defendant convicted of a crime causing injury to that victim; the actual statement made to a court by a victim.

   • As of July, 1985, 19 states permitted victim allocution at the sentencing phase of criminal trials. — 1989
5. •
   The mode of information dissemination in which media broadcasts are transmitted to multiple receivers with no or very limited capability of a two-way exchange of information.

   • Allocution is the dissemination of information by a central unit towards a collectivity of decentral units, the central unit being both the source and the determining actor. — 1993