speaker; utterer
Technical term used in linguistics, discourse analysis, and formal contexts to refer to the person who produces an utterance. Not used for a speaker at a conference or a loudspeaker.
It is important to accurately understand the speaker's intention.
In this sentence, the speaker is requesting something from the listener.
話し手 is a common, everyday word for 'speaker' in a conversation. 発話者 is more technical and formal.
Compound of 発話 (hatsuwa, 'utterance') + 者 (sha, 'person').