Eight Dollar Blog

Even though inner speech has been characterized in many ways, interestingly, from ancient to recent times the notion that it is a silent manifestation of speech directed to the self\\&$ remained constant. Notice the similitude between Plato’s description of inner speech as “a word spoken . . . to oneself and in silence” (1952, p. 538) and Frawley’s (1997) contemporary portrayal of inner speech as “silent speech for oneself (p. 95). Three elements are essential in this characterization: First, inner speech is spoken language,14 that is, it is language in action rather than language as an abstraction; second, it is silent, that is, it cannot be heard by people who are in the presence of the person experiencing it; and third, it has an orientation to the self, that is, it serves private rather than public purposes.

Whereas these fundamental entailments remain at the basis of most, if not all, definitions of inner speech, it does not seem to be an easy concept to reduce to a fewi words. Vygotsky (1986) himself referred to inner speech in a multiplicity of ways: as “an entirely separate speech function” (p. 235), a “mental draft,” (p. 243), “inner dialogue” (p. 243), “practically wordless ‘communication’” (p. 243), “speech almost without words” (p. 244), “a distinct plane of verbal thought” (p. 248), “thought connected with words,” (p. 249), and “thinking in pure meanings” (p. 249). Sokolov (1972) defined it as “soundless, mental speech, arising at the instant we think about something, plan or solve problems in our mind, recall books read or conversations
heard, read and write silently” (p.l). He also called it “concealed verbalization” and “the speech mechanism of thinking” (p.l). Korba (1989) referred to it as “covert, m/rapersonal language behavior” (p. 219) whereas Morin (1993) equated it with “selftalk” or “internal dialogue” (p. 223). In other instances, inner speech has been interpreted as a “voice in the head” (Beggs & Howarth, 1985, p. 396) and as a rehearsal mechanism supporting interaction between the “inner ear” (auditory imagery) and the “inner voice” (subvocalization) (Smith, Reisberg, & Wilson, 1992).

When defining inner speech, it might be useful not just to include modality in its definition but to characterize it functionally as well as developmentally.15 In other words, inner speech is not simply a silent form of self-directed speech; it is, furthermore, an instrument for thought resulting from the internalization of social speech.

Functionally, two main aspects of inner speech emerge from the different treatments and approaches to inner speech: its cognitive, thinking function and its communicative, talking-to-self role. Whereas inner speech always implies some form of cognitive activity, it may not always be characterized as self-talk. As Vocate (1994b) maintains, for internal self-talk to occur, inner speech must be sufficiently organized in linguistic form, that is, semantically and syntactically elaborated, in order to sustain a conscious dialogue with the self. This notion of self-talk as a distinct mode of inner speech implies a view of inner speech as a phenomenon that occurs in stages or levels of processing, that is, as a progression or movement from thought to external speech and vice versa, involving various levels of semantic and syntactic coding. At some point in this progression, inner speech may be closer to thought than speech; this might be the stage characterized by Vygotsky (1986) as “thinking in pure meanings” (p. 249) or by Sokolov (1972) as “thinking in allusions to words” (p. 122). At another point, inner speech might be more expanded and specific in syntax and meaning; this might be the more propitious stage for “inner talking” or self-talk, as Sokolov (1972) and Vocate (1994b) respectively claim.

Taken From:Inner Speech – L2 hinking words in a second langunge

In an economy that not too long ago experienced product shortages and where product supply is now in relative surplus due to structural problems, changes on the demand side, in addition to those on the supply side, will have an influence on the rate of economic development. Our analysis of demand side factors indicates that China’s high rate of growth in the coming five years will not be impeded by constraints on the demand side. However, the following priorities remain: Continue reading »

“One month seems like a long time.”
“Six hundred and seventy-two hours of inner work to profoundly improve every waking moment of the rest of your life is quite a bargain, don’t you think? Investing in yourself is the best investment you will ever make. It will not only improve your life, it will improve the lives of all those around you.”

“How’s that?”
“It is only when you have mastered the art of loving yourself that you can truly love others. It’s only when you have opened your own heart that you can touch the hearts of others. When you feel centered and alive, you are in a much better position to be a better
person.”

“What can I expect to happen in those six hundred and seventy-two hours that comprise one month?” I asked earnestly. “You will experience changes within the workings of your mind, body and even your soul that will astonish you. You will have more energy, enthusiasm and inner harmony than you have had in, perhaps, your entire life. People will actually begin telling you that you look younger and happier. A lasting sense of well-being and balance will swiftly return to your life. These are just some of the benefits of the Sivanan System.”

“Wow.”
“All of what you will hear tonight is designed to improve your life, not just personally and professionally but spiritually as well. The advice of the sages is just as current today as it was five thousand years ago. It will not only enrich your inner world, it will enhance your outer world and make you far more effective in all that you do. This wisdom is truly the most potent force I have ever encountered. It is straightforward, practical and has been tested in the laboratory of life for centuries. Most importantly, it will work for anyone. But before I share this knowledge with you, I must ask you for a promise.”

Taken From:THE MONK WHO SOLD HIS FERRARI

A major proposition, then, of sociocultural theory is that the adult human mind is fundamentally the result of sociocultural mediation and not a product of natural development. This does not mean that sociocultural theory denies the existence of innate, biological requisites and constraints on psychological processes. Actually, one
of the most important developments of the theory was demonstrating the neurological and psychophysiological bases of higher mental functions, an endeavor that fell upon researchers such as Luria(1973,1981) and Sokolov(1972). What sociocultural theory
argues is that nature provides the necessary starting point, that is, the capacity to operate at the level of lower psychological functions. Culture, in turn, through social activity and tool mediation, provides for the transformation of the biological givens into higher mental functions. In this respect, as John-Steiner et al. (1994) stated, sociocultural theory “stresses the unification of nature and culture…, the interweaving of the biological and the social” (p. 4).

The Genetic Approach in the Analysis of Higher Mental Functions

A cornerstone of sociocultural theory is its approach to the study of mind and consciousness from a genetic or developmental point of view. Vygotsky (1978) argued that to truly understand the essence of higher psychological functions, they need to be studied in their formation, as processes that change over time and not as stable properties of the mind. This implies both ontogenetic and microgenetic observation (Wertsch, 1985b). Ontogenesis reveals the development of an organism or mental function from inception to full development, allowing for the observation of multiple causal forces (biological, cultural, and historical). Microgenesis, on the other hand, focuses on processes as they occur in real time. It usually involves observing changes that occur “right before one’s eyes” (Vygotsky 1978, p. 61) either spontaneously or, in some cases, as a result of experimental manipulation. Both ontogenetic and microgenetic analyses imply explanation and not just description. In other words, what is aimed at is the reconstruction of the origins and stages of
development of mental phenomena. This does not mean, according to Vygotsky, that description of the external, objective aspects of psychological events should be discarded; however, such description should be subordinated to a study of their underlying “causal-dynamic relations”(p. 63).

Activity Theory

An important complement to sociocultural theory is the theory of activity, an outgrowth of Vygotsky’s original proposals, whose major exponent was A. N. Leontiev (1981). Activity theory attempts to explain what people do in particular cultural, institutional, and historical settings and the motivations-biological or social-for people to do what they do. In other words, activity theory provides an account of the why, where, when, and how of people’s social and mental behavior (Lantolf & Pavlenko, 2001; Wertsch, 1998).

A. N. Leontiev (1981) established three levels on which to examine human activity.12 The first is the level of activity in general, which is determined by people’s motives. Activities may respond to purely biological needs or may be driven by social and cultural forces. The second level corresponds to individual actions and the goals to which actions are directed. The third level focuses on the concrete operations that are carried out and the particular tools of mediation employed under specific environmental conditions.13 Any activity, including L2 learning, cannot be fully understood if these components (motives, goals, conditions, and mediational means) are not taken into consideration.

Activity theory is extremely relevant to L2 research because it provides explanation for many of its most pressing concerns: what makes learners learn an L2, what accounts for differential results in acquisition, and how learners approach the task of learning, to name a few. One of the most important contributions of activity theory to
L2 learning-or any type of learning, for that matter-is that it assigns learners with agency, that is, the capacity to establish personal goals, set up conditions, and choose the means that best suit their motives or needs in learning (Lantolf & Pavlenko, 2001, p. 145). Another important contribution is in explaining differential outcomes in L2 acquisition. Two students, for example, who take the same class, are offered the same opportunities for learning, and are even engaged in the same learning tasks, may end up obtaining very different results because their motives, goals, and strategies in approaching the learning experience may have been very different (Coughlan & Duff, 1994; Gillette, 1994; A. A. Leontiev, 1981). By the same token, similar outcomes in learning a language may be the result of very different educational experiences. In this respect, activity theory is particularly effective in reminding us that students’ actions are always embedded in particular learning contexts and are influenced by particular learning histories

Taken From:Inner Speech – L2 hinking words in a second langunge

I was struck by the truth of his words. He was right. My many years in the conservative legal world, doing the same things every day with the same people who thought the same thoughts every day had filled my cup to the brim. My wife Jenny was always telling me that we should be meeting new people and exploring new things. “I wish you were just a little more adventurous, John,” she would say.

I couldn’t remember the last time I had read a book that didn’t deal with law. The profession was my life. I began to realize that the sterile world I had grown accustomed to had dulled my creativity and limited my vision.

“Okay. I see your point,” I admitted. “Perhaps all my years as a trial lawyer have made me a hardened skeptic. From the minute I saw you in my office yesterday, something deep inside me told me that your transformation was genuine, and that there was some sort of lesson in it for me. Maybe I just didn’t want to believe it.”

“John, tonight is the first night of your new life. I simply ask that you think deeply about the wisdom and strategies that I will share with you and apply them with conviction for a period of one month. Embrace the methods with a deep trust in their effectiveness. There is a reason why they have survived for thousands of years — they work.”

Taken From:THE MONK WHO SOLD HIS FERRARI

The total of the three sections of the cash flow statement equals net cash flow: CFF + CFI + CFO = net cash flow. We might be tempted to use net cash flow as a performance measure, but the main problem is that it includes financing flows. Specifically, it could be abnormally high simply because the company issued debt to raise cash, or abnormally low because it spent cash in order to retire debt. Continue reading »

Some scholars have proposed the notion of appropriation as a way of conceiving the construct of internalization (Leontiev, A. N., 1981; Newman, Griffin, & Cole, 1989; Wertsch, 1995, 1998). Wertsch (1998) argues that the notion of internalization may mistakenly suggest an inadequate opposition between internal and external
processes reminiscent of old Cartesian mind-body dualism. The construct of internalization may also lead to the erroneous belief that all forms of mediated action occur at an internal plane, a point that Vygotsky (1978) clearly established as false: “For many functions, the stage of external signs lasts forever, that is, it is their final stage of development” (p. 57). Rather than substituting the term internalization with other terms, Wertsch (1998) proposed to envision the construct in terms of mastery and appropriation. The notion of mastery allows for the possibility that some forms of mediated action may never turn inwards and disappear out of sight. For many people, certain mathematical or statistical processes, for example, are never fully internalized although there may be complete mastery over them through external mediation of a calculator. In turn, the notion of appropriation, which Wertsch used in the Bakhtinian sense of making one’s own something that belongs to others, implies that some processes are not easily reduced to the individual plane. In the case of language appropriation, for example, words are always “half someone else’s” (Bakthin, 1981, p. 293). The process of making someone else’s language one’s own implies that words will always reflect to some extent the semantic intentions of others. Appropriation also frequently entails resistance: resistance from words because they do not easily yield their own established intentions and resistance from speakers who will impose on words their own volitions. This process of mutual resistance and tension between words and speakers is very frequent in L2 learning. Lantolf (2000b) described L2 learning as a process of appropriation “through which the individual takes in particular features of the language through privately practising and experimenting with these features” (p. 88). Specifically, for Lantolf, private speech is a form of ediation in the appropriation of an L2.

An important concept within the issue of internalization is that of the “zone of proximal development” (ZPD). Vygotsky envisioned the ZPD as a psychological site, created through dialogic interaction between the child and more mature or expert partners, where the child’s functions that are in the process of maturing have the
potential to grow and develop. It is in the ZPD where children begin to internalize or carry out internally, through inner rather than external speech, those cognitive operations that were first carried out externally in conjunction with others and socially created artifacts. The notion of the ZPD has been interpreted in the literature as applying not just to child-adult, face-to-face interactions but also any type of noviceexpert, peer-peer, adult-adult, or individual-cultural artifact relationship where potential cognitive development and internalization of social modes of thinking may occur.

Mediation of Higher Psychological Processes
Sociocultural theory posits that the human mind is culturally mediated. In other words, higher forms of thinking (voluntary attention, logical reasoning, remembering, planning, problem solving) do not develop naturally as part of predetermined development but evolve from lower forms (elementary perception, involuntary attention, natural memory) as the individual comes into contact with and internalizes social forms of activity, which serve as mediators of mental activity. Vygotsky (1978) argued that the mind does not act upon reality or apprehend it directly but does so indirectly through signs. Signs, in contrast to physical tools that mediate labor and
manipulation of nature, are psychological tools of mediation. Sign-mediated activity includes primarily the use of language but also of other semiotic tools, such as gestures, mnemonic techniques, mathematical symbols, and diagrams. These signs vary not only from culture to culture but also in the course of history, hence the historico-cultural embeddedness of signs and the consciousness they mediate.

Taken From:Inner Speech – L2 hinking words in a second langunge

Julian was quick to respond, as if my disbelief was something he had expected. “In court, how do you prove your case?”
“I offer persuasive evidence.”
“Right. Look at the evidence that I have offered you. Look at my smooth, lineless face. Look at my physique. Can’t you sense the abundance of energy I have? Look at my peacefulness. Surely you can see that I have changed?”

He had a point. This was a man who, only a few years ago, had
looked decades older.
“You didn’t go to a plastic surgeon did you?”
“No,” he smiled. “They only focus on the outer person. I
needed to be healed from within. My unbalanced, chaotic lifestyle
left me in great distress. It was much more than a heart attack
that I suffered. It was a rupture of my inner core.”

“But your story, it’s so . . . mysterious and unusual.”
Julian remained calm and patient in the face of my persistence.
Spotting the pot of tea I had left on the table next to him, he started to pour into my waiting cup. He poured until the cup was full—but then he kept on pouring! Tea started to trickle down the
sides of the cup and into the saucer, then onto my wife’s prized
Persian rug. At first I watched silently. Then I couldn’t take it any
more.

“Julian, what are you doing? My cup is overflowing. No matter how hard you try, no more will go in!” I yelled impatiently.
He looked at me for a long moment. “Please don’t take this the wrong way. I really respect you, John. I always have. However, just like this cup, you seem to be full of your own ideas. And how can any more go in. . . until you first empty your cup?”

Taken From:THE MONK WHO SOLD HIS FERRARI

The statement of cash flows may be the most intuitive of all statements. We have already shown that, in basic terms, a company raises capital in order to buy assets that generate a profit. The statement of cash flows “follows the cash” according to these three core activities: (1) cash is raised from the capital suppliers (which is the ‘cash flow from financing’, or CFF), (2) cash is used to buy assets (’cash flow from investing’, or CFI), and (3) cash is used to create a profit (’cash flow from operations’, or CFO). Continue reading »

Internalization is an essential aspect of the development of higher psychological functions. Vygotsky (1978) conceived internalization as the process by which external sign-mediated activity is reconstructed on the internal plane and begins to operate as
higher mental activity. The reconstruction process, Vygotsky insisted, means the transformation, not just the transferal, of interpersonal activity into intrapersonal activity and the creation of a psychological plane that did not exist before. To clarify this point, A. N. Leontiev (1981) expressed: “The process of internalization is not the transferal of an external activity to a preexisting, internal ‘plane of consciousness’: it is the process in which the internal plane informed” (p. 57). The transformation of external into internal activity by necessity implies a series of developmental changes
in the function and structure of social forms of behavior. To understand this process, Vygotsky (1978, p. 57) offered the example of speech development.

In the Vygotskyan view, the first speech of the child is communicative rather than intellectual; speech for the young child is an external form of social interaction and control. Gradually, speech begins to acquire a second function; it becomes a means for cognitive self-regulation, a vehicle for thinking and not just for communication. Social speech turns into egocentric speech, a transitional phase that marks the beginning of speech internalization and is characterized by less than intelligible and frequently abbreviated language. Egocentric speech serves foremost a private
intellectual function and is self-directed, but it is still spoken out loud. Eventually, egocentric speech sheds its last social feature, vocalization, and turns inwards as inner speech. The transition from social speech to inner speech thus transforms not just the function of speech, from predominantly communicative to predominantly intellectual, but its very structure. Because inner speech is speech for the self, it is vocally imperceptible, syntactically reduced, and semantically condensed.

Galperin (1967), who pursued the notion of internalization in depth, postulated that two different forms or stages of speech for oneself are involved in the formation of higher mental processes or actions “in the mind”: external speech for oneself and inner speech. “The first form of ‘action in the mind’ is ordinary speech but without the volume, i.e., ‘external speech to oneself” (p. 30). However, this is just a transitory step while the psychological action is being formed. When the action is mastered and automatized, external speech for oneself is no longer viable. It is too “protracted and slow” (p. 31). Speech for oneself becomes condensed into verbal meanings and the action transfers to the plane of inner speech. According to Galperin, however, the “essence” of former planes of sign mediated-action is never lost (p. 32). At moments
of cognitive difficulty, it is possible to revert to more external and unfolded modes of action. Frawley and Lantolf (1985) referred to this aspect of mental activity as theprinciple of continuous access (see also Lantolf & Appel, 1994). Adults, for example, sometimes externalize their inner speech in the form of private (audible) speech when performing a challenging task.

Taken From:Inner Speech – L2 hinking words in a second langunge