A communication device having an automatic answering telephone function which can record a message spoken by a sender in a record/reproduction part when there is an incoming signal in an automatic answering mode and also which can interlacedly reproduce only head parts of messages when the received message is to be reproduced. The communication device, which further has a speech processing part for changing a speech rate while keeping a speech pitch constant, can reproduce a recorded message at a speech rate designated by a user and can transmit a rate-changed speech message.