[Xmca-l] Re: Repair in inner speech

[Peter Feigenbaum [Staff]]

Thank you, David, for your insightful enumeration of the various
expressions of private speech-like activity culled from the literary,
theatrical, and cinematic traditions. Monologue, soliloquy, and voice-over
are certainly first cousins to private speech, and they do provide rich
examples of (almost) intra-personal forms of speech communication. But I
find myself disagreeing with the notion that they are, in fact, true
examples of private speech. My familiarity with the private speech
conversations of the children I have studied now leads me to regard this
phenomenon as distinctly different from those other traditions you cited
for the simple reason that children do not intend their private speech for
any audience at all. *Speaking* is not the purpose of private speech -
*thinking* is. I believe that researchers have gone off track viewing
private speech as speech and not as thinking, and that that simple mistake
is the cause of so much misunderstanding. Piaget began that misreading from
his very first report of the phenomenon back in 1923, viewing private
speech as a form of misguided speech, reflecting undeveloped, egocentric
thinking. And indeed, young children's thinking IS egocentric. As I see it,
the only way out of that subjective prison is to embrace
inter-subjectivity, which children do the moment they emancipate themselves
from the restrictions of social speech and begin carrying on a full-fledged
conversation with themselves - out loud. Taking both sides in a
conversation enables them to *think* inter-subjectively.

The *audience* for private speech has posed quite a conundrum over the
years. Piaget claimed that children who are engaged in private speech are
speaking to "no one in particular." G. H. Mead suggested that they are
speaking to a "generalized other". Many other researchers (myself included)
often refer to the audience of private speech as "one's self." For years,
I've questioned the occupants of both the speaker and listener roles,
asking myself "Who's talking to whom?", gravitating to R.D. Laing's work on
The Divided Self, and Self and Others, to find answers. I'm finally coming
to the conclusion that there IS no audience because private speech is not
speech, but thought. Thought is personal and subjective and doesn't require
any audience at all. So the search for an audience is actually futile.

Private speech is an emancipating *mental* activity because it frees the
child from the conversational restrictions imposed by social speech, in
which a person either listens (comprehends someone else's utterance) or
speaks (produces a new utterance for someone else's consumption). In social
speech - confined to either the listener or speaker role - one *never*
receives one's own utterance. The game is catch and throw - not throw and
catch. And that restriction is disabling because the developing child has
no possibility of experiencing the inter-subjectivity that accompanies the
sharing of a single utterance by speaker and listener. To break out of that
restriction requires a "peculiar" form of conversation (to use Piaget's
adjective) in which a single individual plays all the roles, and thus
experiences all of the accompanying subjective perspectives.

I believe there are other significant cognitive benefits to private speech,
all of which are wrapped up with the development of the planning function
and with volitional control over *imagining* speakers and listeners. One of
the earliest uses of private speech is to enact fantasy play, in which
children alter their voices in order to have conversations among multiple
imaginary characters. None of those voices indicate the child's "self" is
involved; the conversation appears to be between *pretend* speakers and
*pretend* listeners. It is an exercise in *playing* conversational roles in
an attempt (in my opinion) to grasp the relations between the voices and
perspectives embodied in those roles.

So, for all of the resemblances between private speech and the literary,
theatrical, and cinematic traditions of monologue, soliloquy, and
voice-over, I submit that they are not one and the same. Many years ago, my
dissertation adviser and mentor, John Dore, warned me against using any of
those traditional terms because of their connotations. He suggested instead
that I refer to private speech conversation in more neutral terms - as
"narratives". Given the misunderstanding of private speech that continues
to prevail, I still find that to be sound advice.

My apologies for not addressing your earlier comments about the
lexico-grammatical differences between private and inner speech. That
omission is a reflection of my emphasis on the functional development of
private speech as opposed to its structural development. I find the latter
issue tends to limit discussion to the *withering away* of private speech,
which to my mind takes a back seat. But I hope we can return to your
thoughts on that topic at some point because the structural development of
private speech between ages 2-7 is an important issue too.

Peter




On Wed, Apr 3, 2019 at 9:06 PM David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com> wrote:

> Unfortunately, for technical reasons, most of the data we have of the
> sociogenesis of language is literary language; it is a little like studying
> history exclusively through the lives of kings). But we can make out a
> somewhat similar phenomenon in the sociogenesis of inner speech in
> literature (including voiceovers in movies).
>
> Before Shakespeare, private speech in theatre was largely limited to what
> we call "asides". This is what I would call an adult private speech: the
> function is to let the audience know that my public speech is not to be
> trusted. Such private speech is actually identical to speech which is
> addressed to someone else, but not to the general (onstage) public. So for
> example in the last scene of Hamlet, Claudius says "It is the poisoned
> cup!" when Gertrude is about to drink the fatal wine. In some productions
> he is talking to Laertes, but in other productions he is talking to himself
> and there isn't a very dramatic difference. Voiceovers in movies still tend
> to function this way.
>
> After Shakespeare, though, private speech in theatre is expanded into what
> we now call "soliloquies". This is not adult private speech: it's
> full-blown inner speech, but inner speech as Virginia Woolf interprets it,
> not inner speech as James Joyce mimics it. It is actually far richer, far
> more complex (yes, in the "complexive" sense) and far LESS simple than
> public speech is. But although it is semantically richer, it is
> lexicogrammatically a lot poorer, because it is a lot more elliptical.
> Woolf tries to render the semantic wealth of inner speech, while Joyce
> concentrates on the lexicogrammatical poverty.
>
> An analogy (excuse my analogies--I'm a very complexive thinker) is the
> distinction between recitative and aria in opera. Recitatives are dialogue,
> and they can also include asides, but when they do these asides do not have
> any independent role in the score. Arias are different. They are generally
> not addressed to other characters (and when they are, they tend to
> realize very intimate moments between lovers); they are essentially sung
> soliloquies.
>
> David Kellogg
> Sangmyung University
>
> New Article:
> Han Hee Jeung & David Kellogg (2019): A story without SELF: Vygotsky’s
> pedology, Bruner’s constructivism and Halliday’s construalism in
> understanding narratives by
> Korean children, Language and Education, DOI: 10.1080/09500782.2019.1582663
> To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2019.1582663
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__doi.org_10.1080_09500782.2019.1582663&d=DwMFaQ&c=aqMfXOEvEJQh2iQMCb7Wy8l0sPnURkcqADc2guUW8IM&r=mXj3yhpYNklTxyN3KioIJ0ECmPHilpf4N2p9PBMATWs&m=78_VDdAoY9yJy3lR3ezc9k_M2-x5f7mli_e5StMpR3I&s=wdaZISakphHzF8SGkxHfd2E-3gpWM8nzpJensqCTP6Q&e=>
>
> Some e-prints available at:
>
> https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/KHRxrQ4n45t9N2ZHZhQK/full?target=10.1080/09500782.2019.1582663
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.tandfonline.com_eprint_KHRxrQ4n45t9N2ZHZhQK_full-3Ftarget-3D10.1080_09500782.2019.1582663&d=DwMFaQ&c=aqMfXOEvEJQh2iQMCb7Wy8l0sPnURkcqADc2guUW8IM&r=mXj3yhpYNklTxyN3KioIJ0ECmPHilpf4N2p9PBMATWs&m=78_VDdAoY9yJy3lR3ezc9k_M2-x5f7mli_e5StMpR3I&s=6LtohljENxlRDp-Dhfc_42ZjWsPlYtXks2P7xVW_15o&e=>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Apr 4, 2019 at 12:02 AM Peter Feigenbaum [Staff] <
> pfeigenbaum@fordham.edu> wrote:
>
>> David,
>>
>> Yes, you caught me making a statement about Vygotsky's account of the
>> relationship between private and inner speech that is true as a general
>> gloss, but that I know to be untrue in its particulars. While private
>> speech does eventually assume the mental functions attributable to inner
>> speech as it nears the end of its development around age 6 or 7, it does
>> not start its life with those functions. Somewhere between its initial
>> appearance (as early as age 1.5 to age 2 in precocious children) and age
>> 6-7, private speech undergoes the most profound changes as an instrument of
>> cognition, developing the capacity to not only *reflect* practical
>> activity, but to also *direct* it. The development of the "planning
>> function" of private speech is, I would argue, a prerequisite to private
>> speech's functioning in a way that resembles the functioning of inner
>> speech.
>>
>> Furthermore, the work has yet to be done that will reveal how speaking
>> monologically (i.e., aloud to one's self) enables a child to think
>> dialogically (i.e., inter-subjectively). That is the topic that I am
>> currently investigating with Jeremy Sawyer. We are exploring how the
>> fantasy-based private speech conversations of 4-year-olds (in a play
>> activity) compare to the plan-based private speech conversations of
>> 8-year-olds (in a problem-solving activity). We are seeking to understand
>> not only how private speech operates differently for the two age groups
>> with respect to its relation to ongoing activity, but also how the forms of
>> conversational exchange develop during this period (e.g., comment-comment
>> vs. question-answer).
>>
>> Much more work yet to be done on private speech!
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Peter
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Apr 2, 2019 at 7:11 PM David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Peter, Henry--
>>>
>>> I have always been very suspcious of the idea that inner speech is
>>> simply non-vocalized private speech. What Vygotsky says is that this may be
>>> true of very small children, but with seven-year-olds, there are huge
>>> grammatical differences between inner speech and private speech (in
>>> Hallidayan terms, inner speech deletes Theme and Given and consists only of
>>> a stream of Rheme and New: what Vygotsky says is that it is "predicative").
>>>
>>> There is a kind of Chinese painting that is supposed to be spontaneous
>>> and calligraphic: you want to catch lots of aleatory effects like drips and
>>> "flying ink". Of course, these effects are hard to control, and so you end
>>> up throwing away hundreds of sheets of paper for every paper you save. Oil
>>> painting is exactly the opposite, because when you put a layer of oil paint
>>> over another layer, if the first layer hasn't dried, it will suck the oil
>>> out of the top layer and make it dull looking and lifeless. So each layer
>>> has to be left for days until you apply another layer.
>>>
>>> Before I learnt to use a word processor, I used a manual typewriter.
>>> With the typewriter, I would write in drafts which I would then "cellar"
>>> for a few days and then rewrite. I never do that now, and the effect seems
>>> to me very like Chinese painting: I have to throw away a lot of stuff to
>>> get what I want. (And even then...)
>>>
>>> It seems to me this has something to do with the difference between
>>> inner speech and private speech in adults. Inner speech (in me, before I
>>> have had my morning coffee at any rate) is a stream of sketches, a bunch of
>>> mis-strokes which are immediately effaced or over-written. But private
>>> speech is not like that: it is, in many ways, more developed than public
>>> speech because it includes public speech as its premise.
>>>
>>> David Kellogg
>>> Sangmyung University
>>>
>>> New Article:
>>> Han Hee Jeung & David Kellogg (2019): A story without SELF: Vygotsky’s
>>> pedology, Bruner’s constructivism and Halliday’s construalism in
>>> understanding narratives by
>>> Korean children, Language and Education, DOI:
>>> 10.1080/09500782.2019.1582663
>>> To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2019.1582663
>>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__doi.org_10.1080_09500782.2019.1582663&d=DwMFaQ&c=aqMfXOEvEJQh2iQMCb7Wy8l0sPnURkcqADc2guUW8IM&r=mXj3yhpYNklTxyN3KioIJ0ECmPHilpf4N2p9PBMATWs&m=fRQGVuf97kHKFpcSeCRuiBG2X-I5OXHkM41BQeouiKc&s=_XQkuYozkuQe_OjdqHpzu84BI8USOfg_p_sNDF_7ItE&e=>
>>>
>>> Some e-prints available at:
>>>
>>> https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/KHRxrQ4n45t9N2ZHZhQK/full?target=10.1080/09500782.2019.1582663
>>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.tandfonline.com_eprint_KHRxrQ4n45t9N2ZHZhQK_full-3Ftarget-3D10.1080_09500782.2019.1582663&d=DwMFaQ&c=aqMfXOEvEJQh2iQMCb7Wy8l0sPnURkcqADc2guUW8IM&r=mXj3yhpYNklTxyN3KioIJ0ECmPHilpf4N2p9PBMATWs&m=fRQGVuf97kHKFpcSeCRuiBG2X-I5OXHkM41BQeouiKc&s=y6u_USgTXN_F_Lna7H3UWf4XPt7qrKWlQm5N4EzIpDc&e=>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Apr 3, 2019 at 7:31 AM Peter Feigenbaum [Staff] <
>>> pfeigenbaum@fordham.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Henry,
>>>>
>>>> In a paper I co-authored on private speech produced in the context of a
>>>> referential communication task (see attached), we found evidence of a child
>>>> that interrupted his own social speech to another child when he needed to
>>>> stop and think about the meaning of a particular word he wanted to use -
>>>> and that that interruption took the form of a private speech communication
>>>> aimed at solving the problem. Once the child solved the word-meaning
>>>> problem, he returned to the social speech utterance he had interrupted and
>>>> completed it. To the extent that private speech is identical to inner
>>>> speech in function (but not form), this piece of evidence suggests that
>>>> inner speech can indeed interrupt social speech when thinking is required.
>>>> Such an interruption would appear externally as a 'thinking' pause in
>>>> social speech.
>>>>
>>>> I have frequently observed similar breaks and shifts in private speech
>>>> conversation, suggesting that the flow of thought and speech is being
>>>> interrupted and re-directed. And if private speech is inner speech
>>>> (differing only in the fact that it is vocalized and not sub-vocalized),
>>>> then there is every reason to believe that inner speech conversation also
>>>> breaks and shifts topic.
>>>>
>>>> I don't know if that qualifies as *repair*, but the possibility is
>>>> certainly consistent with the notion that conversation - whether social,
>>>> private, or inner - can entail repairs.
>>>>
>>>> Peter
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Apr 2, 2019 at 4:14 PM HENRY SHONERD <hshonerd@gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> For my doctoral dissertation on the developmemt of fluency in a second
>>>>> language, finished more than three decades ago, I found a lot data on
>>>>> self-repair. I was surprised today by something I never really thought of
>>>>> before: Is there self-repair in inner speech? (whether it be in a first or
>>>>> second). I found this on the internet:
>>>>>
>>>>> "Levelt (1983) found that errors were often interrupted very quickly,
>>>>> even at mid-segment. The implication of such quick interruptions was that
>>>>> the speaker could not have detected the error while attending to his overt
>>>>> speech. Thus, Levelt (1983, 1989) proposed that speakers monitor their
>>>>> inner speech. According to what is known as the ‘main interruption rule’,
>>>>> when an error is detected, whether internally or auditorily, speech is
>>>>> immediately interrupted (Nooteboom, 1980; Levelt, 1983). This means that
>>>>> short error-to-cut-off intervals are to be expected.
>>>>> "Thus in an incremental model of speech production such as Levelt’s,
>>>>> error-detection is followed by the decision to interrupt speech. This in
>>>>> turn is followed by the planning of the repair (repair- planning), which is
>>>>> thought to take place only upon interruption. If this is true, then short
>>>>> cut-off-to- repair intervals should not be anticipated. This is contrary to
>>>>> the short cut-off-to-repair intervals found by Blackmer and Mitton (1991),
>>>>> suggesting that repair-planning must have occurred before speech was
>>>>> interrupted. The question then remains as to when repair-planning is
>>>>> initiated.” (Detecting and Correcting Speech Repairs”, Peter Heeman
>>>>> and James Allen, 1994.)
>>>>>
>>>>> My question for anybody out there is this: Is there research on repair
>>>>> in inner speech in the CHAT universe?
>>>>>
>>>>> Henry
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Peter Feigenbaum, Ph.D.
>>>> Director,
>>>> Office of Institutional Research
>>>> <https://www.fordham.edu/info/24303/institutional_research>
>>>> Fordham University
>>>> Thebaud Hall-202
>>>> Bronx, NY 10458
>>>>
>>>> Phone: (718) 817-2243
>>>> Fax: (718) 817-3817
>>>> email: pfeigenbaum@fordham.edu
>>>>
>>>
>>
>> --
>> Peter Feigenbaum, Ph.D.
>> Director,
>> Office of Institutional Research
>> <https://www.fordham.edu/info/24303/institutional_research>
>> Fordham University
>> Thebaud Hall-202
>> Bronx, NY 10458
>>
>> Phone: (718) 817-2243
>> Fax: (718) 817-3817
>> email: pfeigenbaum@fordham.edu
>>
>

-- 
Peter Feigenbaum, Ph.D.
Director,
Office of Institutional Research
<https://www.fordham.edu/info/24303/institutional_research>
Fordham University
Thebaud Hall-202
Bronx, NY 10458

Phone: (718) 817-2243
Fax: (718) 817-3817
email: pfeigenbaum@fordham.edu
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