How does a person’s internal speech differ from external speech?

“After everything that has been said about the nature of internal speech, its structure and function, there is no doubt that the transition from internal speech to external speech is not a direct translation from one language to another, not a simple vocalization of internal speech, but a complex dynamic transformation - transformation of predicative and idiomatic speech into syntactically dissected and understandable speech for others.

We can now return to that definition of internal speech and its opposition to external speech, which we prefaced our entire analysis. We said then that internal speech is a completely special function, that in a certain sense it is the opposite of external speech. If external speech is the process of transforming thoughts into words, the materialization and objectification of thoughts, then here we observe a process in the opposite direction - a process that seems to come from the outside in, the process of evaporation of speech into thought. But speech does not disappear at all in its internal form. Consciousness does not evaporate at all and does not dissolve in pure spirit. Inner speech is still speech, i.e. thought associated with a word. But if a thought is embodied in a word in external speech, then the word dies in internal speech, giving birth to a thought. Inner speech is, to a large extent, thinking in pure meanings, but, as the poet says, we “soon get tired in heaven.” Inner speech turns out to be a dynamic, unstable, fluid moment, flickering between the more formalized and stable extreme poles of the speech thinking we are studying: between word and thought. Therefore, its true meaning and place can only be clarified when we take another step towards the inside in our analysis and are able to form at least the most general idea about the next, fourth plane of speech thinking. This new plane of verbal thinking is thought itself. The flow and movement of thought do not coincide directly and directly with the development of speech. Units of thought and units of speech are not the same. One and the other processes exhibit unity, but not identity. They are connected to each other by complex transitions, complex transformations, but do not cover each other like straight lines superimposed on each other. The easiest way to be convinced is in those cases when the work of thought ends unsuccessfully, when it turns out that the thought did not go into words, as Dostoevsky said. Let us recall, for example, a scene from the observations of one hero Gleb Uspensky, where the unfortunate walker, not finding words to express the enormous thought that possesses him, is helplessly tormented and goes off to pray to the saint so that God will give him an understanding. Essentially, what this poor, crippled mind experiences is no different from the same torment of the word in a poet or thinker. He speaks in almost the same words: “I would tell you, my friend, like this, I just wouldn’t hide it, but our brother doesn’t have a tongue... that’s what I’ll say, as if it were coming out of my thoughts , but it doesn’t roll off the tongue. That’s our stupid grief.”

If thought directly coincided in its structure and flow with the structure and flow of speech, such a case would be impossible. But in fact, thought has its own special structure and flow, the transition from which to the structure and flow of speech presents great difficulties. Thought does not consist of individual words in the same way as speech. If I want to convey the idea that I saw today a boy in a blue blouse and barefoot running down the street, I do not see the boy separately, the blouse separately, the fact that it is blue, the fact that he is without shoes, the fact that he is running. I see all this together in a single act of thought, but I break it down into separate words in speech. A thought is always something whole, much larger in extent and volume than a single word. A speaker often develops the same idea over the course of several minutes. This thought is contained in his mind as a whole, and does not at all arise gradually, in separate units, as his speech develops. What is contained simultaneously in thought is developed successively in speech. A thought could be compared to an overhanging cloud that rains down words. Therefore, the process of transition from thought to speech is an extremely complex process of dismembering thought and its reconstruction in words. Precisely because a thought does not coincide not only with the word, but also with the meanings of the words in which it is expressed, the path from thought to word lies through meaning. Since a direct transition from thought to word is impossible, but always requires laying out a complex path, complaints arise about the imperfection of the word and lamentations about the inexpressibility of thought: How can the heart express itself, How can another understand you...

Or:

Oh, if only it were possible to speak with one’s soul without words!

But the whole point is that direct communication of consciousnesses is impossible not only physically, but also psychologically. This can only be achieved in an indirect, mediated way. This path consists in the internal mediation of thought first by meanings and then by words. Therefore, thought is never equal to the direct meaning of words. Meaning mediates thought on its path to verbal expression, i.e. the path from thought to word is an indirect, internally mediated path. It remains for us, finally, to take the last final step in our analysis of the internal plans of speech thinking. Thought is not the final authority in this whole process. The thought itself is born not from another thought, but from the motivating sphere of our consciousness, which covers our drive and needs, our interests and motivations, our affects and emotions. Behind thought is an affective and volitional tendency.

Only she can answer the last “why” in the analysis of thinking. If we compared a thought above with an overhanging cloud, a rain of words, then we should, if we continue this figurative comparison, liken the motivation of the thought to the wind that sets the clouds in motion. A real and complete understanding of someone else’s thought becomes possible only when we reveal its effective, affective-volitional background. When understanding someone else's speech, it is always insufficient to understand only the words, but not the thoughts of the interlocutor. But understanding the interlocutor’s thoughts without understanding his motive, the reason for which the thought is expressed, is incomplete understanding. In the same way, in the psychological analysis of any statement, we reach the end only when we reveal this last and most hidden internal plan of speech thinking: its motivation. This is where our analysis ends. Let us try to take a single look at what we were led to as a result. Speech thinking appeared to us as a complex dynamic whole, in which the relationship between thought and word was revealed as movement through a number of internal planes, as a transition from one plane to another. We conducted our analysis from the most external plane to the most internal. In the living drama of speech thinking, the movement goes in the opposite direction - from the motive that gives rise to any thought, to the design of the thought itself, to its mediation in the inner word, then in the meanings of external words, and finally in words. It would, however, be wrong to imagine that only this single path from thought to word is always carried out in practice. On the contrary, a wide variety of direct and reverse movements, direct and reverse transitions from one plane to another are possible, hardly countable in the present state of our knowledge in this matter. But we already know in the most general form that a movement is possible that ends at any point on this complex path in either direction: from motive through thought to inner speech; from inner speech to thought; from internal speech to external speech, etc. Our tasks did not include studying all these diverse, actually occurring movements along the main path from thought to word. We were interested in only one thing - the main and most important thing: revealing the relationship between thought and word as a dynamic process, as the path from thought to word, as the fulfillment and embodiment of thought in word.”

Vygotsky L.S., Thinking and speech, in Collection: Psychology of thinking / Ed. Yu.B. Gippenreiter et al., M., “Ast”; "Astrel", 2008, p. 506-508.

> Inner speech

External and internal speech.

In linguistics and psycholinguistics, the phenomena of external and internal speech are distinguished.

External speech is ego speech, materially presented in sounds or graphically, addressed to an interlocutor or audience.

Therefore, it is often characterized as speech “for others.” It has a distinct linguistic structure, carried out in the form of words and sentences, although in different communication situations the degree of its syntactic formalization may be different. Thus, in a live dialogue (in spontaneous speech), there may be breaks in coherence, incompleteness and incompleteness of sentences, and logical “jumps.”

Inner speech is a special, not materially expressed form of speech-thinking activity, speech “for oneself” and “to oneself.”

It is constantly present in our minds when we simply think, or listen to someone, or read. The transition from internal speech to external speech (i.e. from thought to speech on the same topic) is often felt as difficulty in verbally expressing a seemingly clear thought. This alone suggests that there are serious differences between external and internal speech.

Let's first ask two questions:

1. Do we think with language?
2. Do we think with words?

The answer to the first question will undoubtedly be positive. The linguistic form of thinking is quite obvious, if only because a person who speaks two or more languages can usually say in which language he always thinks or in a certain situation. Case in point: Speaking at the Oscars, Polish director Andrzej Wajda began his speech in English, then apologized and switched to Polish. The apology was: “I will speak in Polish because I want to more accurately express what I think and feel. But I always think in Polish.” This is also evidenced by the need for “internal translation” into your native language when reading to yourself a text in a foreign language that you do not speak fluently, and the well-known evaluative formula: “O// knows English (German, etc.) so well> that even thinks in English (German, etc.).”

However, the second question (do we think with words?) can raise legitimate doubts and thereby give rise to a new question: how do we think? Since internal speech does not have a tangible material form, flowing in our consciousness in the psychophysical mechanisms of the work of neurons hidden from direct perception, it is much more difficult to study than external speech. Even if it were possible to record it, as we record speech on a tape recorder, it would remain absolutely incomprehensible to us.

One of the ways to study inner speech is introspection, or introspection (from the Latin introspecto - I look inside), but this does not give the necessary results, since you can only observe the last phase of thinking on yourself - the expanded phase of internal pronunciation, which really differs from external speech only by the absence of voicing (phonation) - i.e. This is “speech minus sound.” Try to check what has been said: you will definitely start reasoning to yourself. However, it is obvious that more often we think differently. By how?

It could be argued that when we start to think about how we think, we start to think differently (not quite the same) as we usually think. Therefore, to study inner speech, special experimental methods are needed, which are available in modern psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics and which have really made it possible to learn a lot about the place of language in our thinking. In particular, the study of the development of a child’s speech skills, as well as various speech disorders associated with damage to the cerebral cortex (the subject of neurophysiology and neuropsychology), is extremely helpful. As a result, it was possible to experimentally confirm and clarify those qualities of inner speech, which, long before the advent of modern psycholinguistic methods, were written about in the book “Thinking and Speech” (1934) by the famous Russian psychologist L. S. Vygotsky, who drew his conclusions based on observations of the early stage of formation the child’s speech - the so-called egocentric child speech (speech “for oneself”).

The main features of inner speech are:

a) phasing;
b) reduction;
c) predicativeness.

The phase nature of internal speech as a thought process is manifested in its heterogeneity at different stages of the work of consciousness. There are usually two phases: reduced and expanded (internal pronunciation). The phase of internal pronunciation, which differs, as already mentioned, from external speech only in the absence of sound and is accessible to introspection, can immediately precede external speech (for example, preliminary thinking about an answer in an exam or thinking through some serious conversation). The reduced phase is more typical of the thinking process and at the same time more complex. Next we will talk specifically about this phase.

The reduction of inner speech is felt by a person already at the level of everyday consciousness. Let’s think about the comparative “thought capacity” and “speech capacity” of some period of time, for example a second. It is quite obvious that the “thought capacity” of time is many orders of magnitude higher, which is captured in the expressions “a thought flashed” (but not “speech flashed”!), “remembered with lightning speed, imagined, etc. This has been proven experimentally for all levels of language structure: phonetic, lexical, syntactic.

On the phonetic level, articulation is replaced only by impulses coming from the cerebral cortex to the corresponding speech organs. It is significant that it is easier for a child to think out loud, and he first learns to read out loud, and only then to himself, but at the same time he continues to move his lips for a long time. The presence of articulatory impulses is more obvious, the more complex the mental task being solved. This is proven by a special experiment, during which electrokymograms of movements of the muscles of the tongue and lower lip are recorded in the process of thinking, and the length and density of the recorded wave is directly proportional to the complexity of mental work.

In an experiment conducted by A. N. Sokolov, the same subject, student K., was asked to first extract the square root of 190, and then the square root of 225. In the first case, the electrokymogram is three densely filled lines: the subject spends a long time and tensely thought, trying to calculate the root of 190. In the second case, this is a short and almost even line: the subject quickly remembered the familiar number “15” (see Fig. 10.1).

Rice. 10.1. Electromyograms of inner speech:

Electrograms I, II and III recorded the potentials of the muscles of the tongue (a) and lower lip (b) at the moment of mentally extracting the square root of 190 (approximating to 0.1); on the IV electrogram - when mentally extracting the square root of 225. Subject K., student. He calculated the square root of 190, but “just remembered” the square root of 225.

At the lexical level, the degree of reduction—and time saving—is incomparably higher. We do not think in words in the full sense of the term “word.” In inner speech there are only hints of a few generalizing words related to a given topic: being semantic complexes, they can be expanded if desired. It is precisely due to the fact that we think not in words, but in “clumps of thought”, “quanta”, that suddenness and speed of thought is possible =>. Moreover, such “inner words” are absolutely devoid of grammatical structure and in external speech they can be realized by different parts of speech.

It is extremely important that in inner speech a significant place is occupied by images and ideas that replace words and make thought very capacious. Indicative in this regard is Albert Einstein’s answer to the questionnaire “How is your scientific thinking carried out” distributed among the world’s leading scientists: “Words, how they are written and pronounced, apparently do not have any role in my thinking. More or less clear signs and images of physical realities act as elements of thinking. I diligently search for words and other symbols and find them at the second stage, when the described game of associations has already been established...”

Let us also pay attention to the phrase “game of associations”. For internal speech in the phase under consideration, not so much logical as associative connections are important. That is why, when thinking, we so easily “jump” from one thought, one topic to another, not always catching this “Brownian movement” (metaphor of B. M. Gasparov) of our thought.

At the syntactic level, the reduction of inner speech is manifested in the absence of complete sentences. At the same time, the subject is missing from the thought, which denotes what is already known in the sentence, but the semantic predicate is retained (not necessarily a verb!), which contains the grain of the thought, the new thing to which we, reflecting, are moving. A semantic predicate is otherwise called a predicate, therefore the described property of inner speech, following L. S. Vygotsky, is called predicativity =>.

Example situation

An approximate idea of inner speech, in particular of its associativity and predicativity, can be obtained from the texts of the “stream of consciousness” literature. Let us use as an example a fragment of the reflections of the hero of the novel “Thoughts and Heart”, written by the famous cardiologist Nikolai Amosov, who also worked a lot on the problem of the brain and consciousness:

“A note of thoughts... Autumn colors - carmine, cinnabar. Yellow. Which ones are yellow? I used to draw and buy paints. Forgot. Yes, ocher. End of September. . And it's autumn for me. In a year - sixty. It's probably already October. . There are yellow and even green leaves, but they are no longer alive. Dry. And rare ones - you can see the sky through them.” The living flow of thought will be conveyed by short, including single-component and incomplete sentences, and associative switches.

Sokolov L.N. Inner speech and thinking. M., 1968. P. 27.

PREFACE

This textbook is addressed to teachers and psychologists whose activities are related to the development of speech in children and adolescents, and primarily to speech pathologists involved in the formation of speech in conditions of general and speech dysontogenesis (disturbed, deviant development). This manual is devoted to one of the most important sections of the new field of scientific knowledge - psycholinguistics, namely the theory of speech activity. Knowledge of the fundamentals of the theory of speech activity, in our deep conviction, is a prerequisite for the professional training of all specialists who, in practice, carry out the solution of one of the main tasks of education and upbringing - the formation of speech as a specifically human type of mental activity in the course of personal and social development of a person. The idea of creating a textbook on psycholinguistics was formed by each of its authors quite a long time ago, at least since the time when the educational course “Fundamentals of the Theory of Speech Activity” (in university practice immediately designated by the memorable abbreviation “ OTRD"). At the end of the 90s of the last century, at the suggestion of V.A. Kovshikov, the authors decided to combine their efforts in this direction, and a few years later the initial version (manuscript) of the textbook was ready - the first textbook on psycholinguistics for speech pathologists students in the domestic educational literature. Unfortunately, the sudden death of Valery Anatolyevich did not allow this work to be completed, since its final stage - the final “joining” of the chapters and sections of the book written by each of the authors, their combination into a common text of the manual - was not completed. And yet, this book was able to see the light of day thanks to the help of the ACT - Astrel Publishing House and, first of all, the leading editor of the Educational Projects department, E.E. Shevtsova, to whom we would like to express special gratitude and gratitude. The publication of this book is a tribute to the memory and deep respect of V. A. Kovshikov, a colleague and senior comrade, one of the prominent domestic specialists in the field of theory and practice of speech therapy. Valery Anatolyevich was a bright and extraordinary personality; He directed all his great creative potential and irrepressible energy to solving pressing problems and needs of practical speech therapy, remaining its devoted Knight and servant until his very last days. V.A. Kovshikov’s personal contribution to the theory and methodology of domestic speech therapy is recognized by all leading specialists in this field of correctional pedagogy. The authors of this manual are “pupils” and representatives of different “schools” of domestic speech therapy – St. Petersburg (Leningrad) and Moscow. These two leading “scientific and methodological centers” of Russian speech therapy for several decades of their existence were in a certain “opposition” to each other, which was reflected in the differences in conceptual approaches to many problems in the theory and practice of speech therapy. It was natural to expect a lack of “complete mutual understanding” in the views on the psycholinguistic interpretation of speech activity among the authors of this manual, which actually happened at the initial stage of joint work. It should be noted that some “differences in views” among the authors of this book were successfully overcome, and quite lengthy “scientific discussions” led to a “consensus” that satisfied both authors. The main circumstance that determined this was the very interested attitude of the authors to psycholinguistics and unity in their view of its role in the professional development of a teacher-defectologist. Psycholinguistics is a science that emerged relatively recently, in the early 50s. last century. Having emerged “at the junction” of two “oldest” branches of scientific knowledge – psychology and linguistics (linguistics), psycholinguistics, in a relatively short period of its existence, has become one of the main “speech science” and linguistic sciences. The emergence of this new field of science was objectively determined by the needs of social development of human society, in particular the need for scientific knowledge of the nature of human mental intellectual activity (A.A. Leontyev, 2003, etc.). Speech as a higher mental function, which is one of the components of intellectual activity, and language as the main means of speech activity and the implementation of thinking processes, have long been the subject of special attention of psychologists and linguists. Thanks to a number of theoretical and experimental studies in the “bowels” of these sciences, quite a large amount of epistemological and factual material has been accumulated and generalized, characterizing the specific - psychological and linguistic - patterns of language acquisition and the formation of human speech ability during ontogenesis, the peculiarities of the implementation of speech communication in the human society. Despite the significant progress achieved in psychology and linguistics in the study of speech and the process of using language in verbal communication, by the middle of the 20th century it became obvious to specialists dealing with these problems that psychologists and linguists need to combine their efforts in solving these problems. There is an urgent need to create a “universal” scientific theory that objectively reflects the dialectical unity of language and speech in the processes of speech communication, explaining the diversity of manifestations of speech activity and its connection with the processes of mental, analytical and synthetic human activity. An important issue was also the development of a new methodology for scientific research, combining the most modern and promising methods of theoretical and experimental research into the phenomena of language and speech. For the first time, such a methodology for scientific knowledge of speech activity and studying the nature of language signs was developed by the outstanding Russian scientist Lev Semenovich Vygotsky, one of the founders of psycholinguistics (42, 45, etc.). Scientific discoveries of L.S. Vygotsky, his promising and profound scientific concepts about the nature of the phenomena of language and speech, the dialectical unity of the processes of thinking and speech, the patterns of speech formation and language acquisition during ontogenesis served as a scientific and theoretical basis for the emergence of psycholinguistics as an independent field of scientific knowledge. Without any exaggeration we can say that the works of L.S. Vygotsky and other representatives of Russian psychological and linguistic schools (P.P. Blonsky, S.L. Rubinshtein, A.R. Luria, A.N. Leontiev, L.V. Shcherba, V.V. Vinogradov, etc.) came the most important scientific prerequisite for the emergence of psycholinguistics. At the same time, it cannot be denied that the leading role in the emergence of psycholinguistics as an independent science belonged to American scientists - psychologists and linguists, primarily C. Osgood, J. Carroll and T. Sibeok. Despite the fact that the recognition of psycholinguistics as a serious science in the domestic scientific community took place only in the early 60s. XX century, the domestic psycholinguistic school developed quite intensively and soon moved to a leading position. The achievements of Russian psycholinguistics have received recognition throughout the world. This happened largely due to the fact that domestic psycholinguistics drew its development from the enormous scientific potential of the domestic psychological and linguistic school, which delegated its best representatives to this science (A.R. Luria, P.Ya. Galperin, V.A. Artemov , N.I. Zhinkin, E.F. Tarasov, P.M. Frumkina, A.K. Markova, etc.). The scientific material accumulated by psycholinguistics over the half-century period of its existence on the patterns of the formation and implementation of speech activity, the processes of speech communication, the use of language signs for the implementation of speech and mental activity, without a doubt, should be the property of every specialist involved in the formation of speech or the restoration of speech ability (in case of acquired speech development disorders). This knowledge is of particular importance for a correctional teacher (primarily a speech therapist), whose main goal of professional activity is the formation of speech in conditions of general and speech dysontogenesis. Knowledge of the psycholinguistic patterns of speech activity and its formation during ontogenesis constitutes, in our opinion, the basis of the “basic” theoretical training of a speech therapist. The need for the active introduction of psycholinguistic knowledge into the theory and methodology of speech therapy work, as well as the importance of mastering this knowledge by speech pathology students, has been repeatedly pointed out in their works by leading theorists and methodologists of domestic speech therapy - T.B. Filicheva, G.V. Chirkina, L.S. Volkova, B.M. Grinshpun, R.I. Lalaeva, O.S. Orlova, S.N. Shakhovskaya and others. Under the guidance of R.I. Lalaeva and with the participation of the above-mentioned specialists, a textbook on psycholinguistics was prepared - the first textbook of this kind for special education teachers. A number of interesting methodological materials related to the introduction of psycholinguistic knowledge into the practice of speech therapy work are contained in the manual prepared under the guidance of L.B. Khalilova at the defectology faculty of Moscow State University (179). Domestic psycholinguistics, as one of its creators, A.A. Leontyev, points out, for almost a quarter of a century after its inception, it developed primarily in the direction of developing a theory of speech activity. I would like to especially emphasize that the methodological arsenal of psycholinguistics (in comparison with other “speech” sciences) allows us to most fully and exhaustively study the patterns and specific features of the formation and functioning of speech activity. It should be noted that the most important task of speech correction and speech therapy work is the students’ full mastery of the means of performing speech activity, the main of which are language signs. Mastering the system of the native language in the conditions of “speech” dysontogenesis is the second most important area of the professional activity of a correctional teacher. At the same time, psycholinguistics can provide the correctional teacher not only with the necessary theoretical knowledge, but also with a comprehensive methodology for psycholinguistic research of the specific features of speech activity operating with language signs. It is important to note that psycholinguistics (like no other field of scientific knowledge) helps the correctional teacher correctly understand the place and role of “language” work in the overall system of correctional education. It gives a clear idea that language ability (the ability to adequately use language signs in the process of speech communication) is an integral part of the general speech ability. This provides a special, professional view of the entire system of correctional and speech therapy work. The most important subject of research in psycholinguistics is speech as a psychophysiological process of generating and perceiving speech utterances. Over the past three to four decades, psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics have accumulated a large amount of theoretical and experimental material on the problem of studying the processes of speech production and speech perception, reflecting the basic laws of the process of realizing speech activity. This material is important for correctional teachers involved in the formation (or restoration) of speech in children and adults. The two main directions of “speech” work are the formation of expressive speech (processes of speaking and writing) and impressive speech (processes of speech perception). The study of the patterns and features of the course of these speech-thought processes and their violations in the pathology of cognitive activity is also the subject of research in psycholinguistics. Thus, the theory of speech activity, using the methodology of theoretical and experimental analysis, explores those aspects of human intellectual mental activity that are primarily of interest to a correctional teacher (in particular, a speech therapist) and which are the object of his special pedagogical influence.

Unfortunately, the problem of actively introducing psycholinguistic knowledge into the theory and methodology of correctional speech therapy work is still far from resolved. It must be admitted that over the last decade, more attention has been paid to the problem of creating educational and popular scientific literature on psycholinguistics in the higher education system. During this period, several textbooks and teaching aids were published (works by A.A. Leontyev, I.N. Gorelov and K.F. Sedov, PM Frumkina, A.A. Zalevskaya, V.P. Belyanin). At the same time, there are still very few special textbooks on psycholinguistics for teachers-defectologists. [1 - In addition to the above works edited by R.I. Lalaeva and L.B. Khalilova can only be called the textbook by V.P., published in 2005 by the same AST-Astrel Publishing House. Glukhova (57).] The proposed textbook “Fundamentals of the Theory of Speech Activity” suggests, to a certain extent, filling the lack of special educational literature on psycholinguistics. This manual is addressed to correctional teachers - students of the faculties of special pedagogy and psychology, as well as practitioners whose professional task is the formation of speech in conditions of general and speech dysontogenesis. In addition, we hope that this book will also be of interest to specialists working in the field of practical correctional psychology. In the proposed manual, those problems and aspects of the theory of speech activity that, in our opinion, are of decisive importance for the professional training of a correctional teacher are selected as the subject for coverage. The sections of general psycholinguistics that we have chosen for consideration contain theoretical and subject-methodological knowledge, which form the basis for the training of a specialist involved in the formation and correction of speech in children and adults. Knowledge of the patterns of formation and implementation of human speech activity studied by psycholinguistics, the traditionally established “norms” and rules for the use of language signs in speech-thinking activity are a necessary theoretical basis for the practical development by a correctional teacher of the methodology of correctional speech therapy work. This manual is based on the material developed by the authors for a course of lectures on the academic disciplines “Fundamentals of the Theory of Speech Activity” and “Psycholinguistics” for students of the defectology faculty of Moscow State Pedagogical University named after. M.A Sholokhov and the Faculty of Special Pedagogy and Psychology of the Russian State Pedagogical University named after. A.I. Herzen (St. Petersburg). V.A. Kovshikov wrote chapters 2 (§ 1–4), 7 (§ 1–6) and § 5 and 6 of part II of chapter 9; V.P. Glukhov – chapters 3, 4 (except § 1), 6 and 8. The remaining sections of the manual were prepared jointly by the authors. The basis of the lecture course was the scientific and theoretical concepts of speech activity by leading domestic psycholinguists - A.A. Leontyev, N.I. Zhinkin and I.A. Winter. A.A. Leontiev, the founder of the Russian school of psycholinguistics, is a leading theorist of modern psycholinguistics. The indisputable merit of AA Leontiev is not only the creation of a theoretical concept of speech activity, but also his deep scientific analysis of the development of psycholinguistic thought in foreign and domestic science. His comprehensive critical analysis of the main scientific concepts created by the leading psycholinguistic schools of the world, his vision of the problems of modern psycholinguistics and the prospects for its development have been and remain the standard for all leading specialists working in the field of this science. I.A. Zimnyaya is a representative of another Russian scientific school, a student and follower of N.I. Zhinkina. At one time, she developed and scientifically substantiated her own, original concept of speech activity, the undoubted advantage of which is its pronounced methodological orientation. The general principles of scientific analysis of facts and phenomena of speech activity are subordinated in this concept to the needs of language teaching and the formation of speech activity. Of course, this manual reflects the conceptual approaches to solving key problems of psycholinguistics of a number of other prominent scientists - psychologists and psycholinguists (A.R. Luria, L.S. Tsvetkova, T.V. Akhutina, A.M. Shakhnarovich, V.P. Belyanin and etc.). Taking as a basis the principle of “methodological conditionality and direction” of psycholinguistic research, we tried to make a “practical” way out of psycholinguistic theory into the methodology of correctional and speech therapy work: each section of this manual contains methodological conclusions and guidelines for the organization and substantive content of “speech” work , arising from certain psycholinguistic patterns of speech activity. When drawing up methodological recommendations, the authors relied on their own experience in speech therapy practice and research work, the subject of which is the formation of speech in children with systemic underdevelopment. The work experience of our colleagues – practicing speech therapists – was also used. It should be emphasized that this manual primarily pursues educational goals aimed at solving the problem of “basic” theoretical training of future speech therapists-practitioners, as well as expanding the range of psycholinguistic knowledge among practicing specialists. We see another function of our book in increasing interest in psycholinguistics among students-defectologists, in forming in them a personal need to master psycholinguistic knowledge, without which not a single correctional teacher can become a true professional in their field. V. P. Glukhov

Inner speech

See what “Inner speech” is in other dictionaries:

inner speech - see inner speech. Brief psychological dictionary. Rostov-on-Don: “PHOENIX”. L.A. Karpenko, A.V. Petrovsky, M. G. Yaroshevsky. 1998. inner speech ... Great psychological encyclopedia
Inner speech is a special, unconscious, automatically operating form of speech that a person uses when thinking about solving verbal logical problems. Inner speech: is derived from external speech; and represents a thought not expressed in... ... Financial Dictionary
inner speech - Speech with the help of which a person thinks <...> There is reason to believe that the process of its formation occurs only at school age. <...> A way of thinking, <...> an internal way of behavior, a special form... ... Dictionary L.S. Vygotsky
INTERNAL SPEECH - (English: inner speech). 1. Silent speech, arising, for example, in the process of thinking. A special type of silent human speech activity, not formalized in a sound or graphic code, characterized by extreme convolution of grammatical... ... New dictionary of methodological terms and concepts (theory and practice of language teaching)
INTERNAL SPEECH - 1) speech addressed to oneself, etc. internal program of utterances that are not realized in spoken speech. 2) Articulatory movements not accompanied by sound (internal enunciation). The study of inner speech promotes understanding... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary
internal speech - Unpronounceable, silent speech, speech “to oneself”, addressed by the subject to himself (cf. external speech). Internal speech may differ from external speech in laconicism, abruptness, and the elliptical nature of grammatical structures II T. D ... Dictionary of linguistic terms
Inner Speech is a hidden verbalization that accompanies the thinking process. Its manifestations are most obvious when mentally solving various problems, mental planning, carefully listening to the speech of other people, reading texts about... Psychological Dictionary
Inner speech is silent speech, hidden verbalization that occurs in the process of thinking to oneself. It is a derivative form of external (sound) speech, specially adapted to perform mental operations in the mind. It is presented in the most distinct form... ... Dictionary-reference book for social work
Inner speech - 1) speech addressed to oneself, etc. internal program of utterances that are not realized in spoken speech; 2) articulatory movements not accompanied by sound (internal enunciation). The study of inner speech promotes understanding... ... Dictionary-reference book on educational psychology
Inner speech - 1) speech addressed to oneself, etc. internal program of utterances that are not realized in spoken speech; 2) articulatory movements not accompanied by sound (internal enunciation). The study of inner speech promotes understanding... ... Dictionary of educational psychology
inner speech - 1) planning and control “in the mind” of speech actions; one of the forms of realization of thinking. 2) Articulatory movements not accompanied by sound (“internal enunciation”). 3) One of the stages of internal programming as a phase of generating speech ... Encyclopedic Dictionary

Examples of different types of speech

To better understand the topic, it is worth considering the types of speech with examples. So, oral speech is a conversation with mom, an answer in class, a teacher’s story, lines of characters in a film, and so on.

Written – this is a lesson summary, an essay, even a note on the refrigerator. By the way, when a person types on a typewriter or computer, this is also a written form of speech.

Previously, in order to write down their thoughts, people used pictograms - these are special symbols. Today, letters are mainly used for this, but in some countries (such as Japan, China, Korea and others) written language is conveyed using hieroglyphs.

Inner speech is any person’s thoughts, no matter whether he is thinking about his favorite cake or about how to retell a book in a literature lesson.

The structure of inner speech

Inner speech is not just speech to oneself, as psychologists thought for several generations, who believed that inner speech is the same external speech, but with a truncated end, without speech motor skills, that it is “talking to oneself”, built on the same laws of vocabulary, syntax and semantics as external speech. To think so would be the greatest mistake. This idea is erroneous, if only because such “speech to oneself” would be a duplication of external speech. In such a case, internal speech would flow at the same speed as external speech. However, it is known that an intellectual act, decision-making, and choosing the right path occur quite quickly, sometimes literally in tenths of a second. During this short period, it is impossible to say to yourself a whole detailed phrase, much less a whole reasoning. Consequently, internal speech, which plays a regulatory or planning role, has a different, abbreviated structure than external speech. This structure can be traced by studying the path of transformation of external speech into internal speech.

Let us remember how a child’s speech is constructed, which arises in any difficulty. At first, his planning speech is of a fully developed nature (“The piece of paper is sliding, how can I make sure it doesn’t slide?”; “Where can I get the button?”; “Maybe I should drool on the piece of paper?”, etc.) . Then it contracts, becomes fragmentary, and then in external whispered speech only fragments of this previously expanded speech appear (“But the piece of paper... it slides... but what about... if only there was a button..." or even: “piece of paper”, “button” , “but what about”).

If we carefully trace the structure of speech moving from external to internal, we can state, firstly, that it passes from loud to whispered, and then into internal speech, and secondly, that it contracts, turning from expanded to fragmented and rolled up. All this makes it possible to assume that internal speech has a completely different structure than external speech.

A characteristic feature of inner speech is that it begins to become purely predicative speech.

What does it mean? Every person who tries to include his inner speech in the process of solving a problem knows exactly what is at stake, what task is facing him. This means that the nominative function of speech, an indication of what exactly is meant, or, using the term of modern linguistics, what is the “topic” of the message (linguists conventionally designate it with an inverted T), is already included in inner speech and does not need special designation . All that remains is the second semantic function of inner speech - designating what exactly should be said about a given topic, what new should be added, what specific action should be performed, etc.

This side of speech appears in linguistics under the term “rheme” (conventionally denoted by an inverted R sign). Thus, internal speech, in its semantics, never denotes an object, and is never strictly nominative in nature, i.e. does not contain a “subject”; inner speech indicates what exactly needs to be done, in which direction the action needs to be directed. In other words, while remaining folded and amorphous in its structure, it always retains its predicative function. The predicative nature of internal speech, denoting only a plan for further utterance or a plan for further action, can be expanded as necessary, since internal speech originated from expanded external speech and this process is reversible. If, for example, I go to a lecture to talk about the mechanisms of inner speech, then I have an abbreviated lecture plan in the form of several points (“inner speech”, “ego”, etc.), indicating what exactly I want to say about this subject (in other words, of a predicative nature). This brief plan allows us to move on to a detailed external statement.

conclusion

Internal speech is various types of language use (more precisely, linguistic meanings) outside the process of real communication. There are three main types of internal speech: a) internal pronunciation - “speech to oneself”, preserving the structure of external speech, but devoid of phonation, i.e. pronouncing sounds, and is typical for solving mental problems in difficult conditions; b) internal speech itself, when it acts as a means of thinking, uses specific units (code of images and schemes, subject code, subject meanings) and has a specific structure, different from the structure of external speech: c) internal programming, i.e. formation and consolidation in specific units of the plan (type, program) of a speech utterance, the whole text and its meaningful parts (A. N. Sokolov; I. I. Zhinkin, etc.). In ontogenesis, inner speech is formed in the process of internalization of external speech.

Most modern psychologists do not believe that inner speech has the same structure and the same functions as expanded external speech. By internal speech, psychology understands a significant transitional stage between an idea (or thought) and expanded external speech. The mechanism that allows the general meaning to be recoded into a speech utterance gives this idea a speech form. In this sense, inner speech generates (integrates) a detailed speech utterance, including the original intent in the system of grammatical codes of the language.

The transitional place occupied by inner speech on the path from thought to a detailed statement determines the main features of both its functions and its psychological structure. Inner speech is, first of all, not a detailed speech utterance, but only a preparatory stage preceding such an utterance; it is directed not at the listener, but at oneself, at translating into the speech plane that scheme that was previously only the general content of the plan. This content is already known to the speaker in general terms, because he already knows what exactly he wants to say, but has not determined in what form and in what speech structures he can embody it.

Inner speech is an essential link in the process of transforming the original idea or simultaneous “semantic record”, the meaning of which is understandable only to the subject himself, into a detailed, flowing in time, syntagmatically constructed system of meanings.

For a long time, “inner speech” was understood as speech devoid of the motor end, as “speech to oneself.” It was assumed that inner speech largely preserves the structure of outer speech; the function of this speech remained unclear.

Thus, internal speech differs from external speech not only in the external sign that it is not accompanied by loud sounds - “speech minus sound”. Internal speech differs from external speech in its function (speech for oneself). Performing a different function than the external one (speech for others), it in some respects also differs from it in its structure - it generally undergoes some transformation (abbreviated, understandable only to oneself, predicative, etc.).

14. Language and speech.

The concept of language and speech are among the most important and complex concepts of linguistics; they are of great importance for the norms of language and its practical description. However, in the practice of linguistics, there are sometimes cases of confusion between the facts of language and speech, so it is necessary to accurately determine the essence of these concepts.

The problem was first formulated by Humboldt. He distinguished language as an organ that forms thought, and speech as a process. Other linguists also distinguished between these concepts. Saussure developed an entire doctrine, understanding language as a system of signs and rules for their combination, and speech as the use of this sign system, as communication.

The differences seemed incompatible => they divided the science of language into linguistics of language and linguistics of speech. But scientists did not agree with his conclusions, because... between language and speech, despite their differences and contradictions, there is a dialectical connection.

Structure of inner speech

A characteristic feature of inner speech is that it begins to become purely predicative speech.

What does it mean? Every person who tries to include his inner speech in the process of solving a problem knows exactly what is at stake, what task is facing him. him. This means that the nominative function of speech, an indication of what exactly is meant, or, using the term of modern linguistics, what is the “topic”, messages linguists conventionally designate it with the sign X. It is already included in inner speech and does not need special designation. All that remains is the second semantic function of internal speech - the designation of what exactly should be said about a given topic, what new should be added, what specific action should be performed, etc. This side of speech appears in linguistics under the term “rheme” (conventionally denoted by the sign H Thus, internal speech, in its semantics, never denotes an object, is never strictly nominative in nature, that is, does not contain a “subject”; internal speech indicates what exactly needs to be done, in which direction the action needs to be directed. In other words, remaining collapsed and amorphous in its structure, it always retains its predicative function. The predicative nature of internal speech, denoting only a plan for further utterance or a plan for further action, can be expanded as necessary, since internal speech arose from the expanded external one and this process is reversible If, for example, I go to a lecture in order to talk about the mechanisms of internal speech, then I have an abbreviated plan for the lecture in the form of several points (“inner speech”, “ego”, etc.), indicating that it is I I want to say something about this subject (in other words, it is predicative in nature). This brief plan allows us to move on to a detailed external statement. Based on inner speech, the lecturer can unfold everything further; content of the lecture.

The role of internal speech as an essential link in the generation of speech utterances was covered in detail by such authors as S. D. Katsnelson (1970, 1972), A. A. Leontyev (1974), A. N. Sokolov (1962), T. V. Akhutina (1975).

Types and functions of speech

Oral speech is that which is pronounced, spoken. People hear her. And its main function is communication, that is, the transfer of information from one person to another.

The word “oral” comes from the Old Russian “mouth” - that’s what lips were called before. That is, from the name itself it is already clear what kind of speech it is.

The second type of speech is written. From its name it is also clear that this is something that is written using letters and other signs. That is, everything we read and write belongs to this type. It can also be used for communication between people, but it also performs other functions. So, it is necessary for recording information and expressing thoughts.

Inner speech is speech “to oneself”, a very special type of speech. Its functional features lie in the fact that with its help a person only records the knowledge that he has received. It also helps organize thoughts. It is used when a person is thinking or reading not out loud.

Inner speech is always excerpts and fragments. It differs in that you can move from it to oral or written, having first formulated the thought more logically and coherently.