Private Speech as Social Action
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/lst.v2i2.26615Keywords:
CA-SLA, private speech, Vygotskian sociocultural theoryAbstract
An important theoretical construct within the Vygotskian sociocultural approach to second language learning is private speech. Within a conversation-analytic framework, an agnostic stance is taken in this paper toward the possible intrapsychological function(s) of private speech in order to (1) illustrate how private speech can be identified within the details of talk-in-interaction and (2) how private speech can be understood as social action. It is argued that attention to the details of how private speech is produced is important in order to show how private speech has been identified as such; that viewing private speech as social action allows for a more emic perspective; and that, at least within interaction, private speech is social not just in origin, but each time that it is produced.
References
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Damianova, M. K., Lucas, M., and Sullivan, G. B. (2012). Verbal mediation of problem solving in pre-primary and junior primary school children. South African Journal of Psychology 42 (3): 445–455. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/008124631204200316
DiCamilla, F. J. and Antón, M. (2004). Private speech: A study of language for thought in the collaborative interaction of language learners. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 14 (1): 36–69. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1473-4192.2004.00053.x
Donato, R. (2000). Sociocultural contributions to understanding the foreign and second language classroom. In J. P. Lantolf (ed.) Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning, 27–50. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in Ethnomethodology. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Glenn, P. (2003). Laughter in Interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511519888
Goffman, E. (1981). Forms of Talk. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Goodwin, C. (1987). Unilateral departure. In G. Button and J. R. E. Lee (eds) Talk and Social Organisation, 206–216. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Hauser, E. (2005). Coding ‘corrective recasts’: The maintenance of meaning and more fundamental problems. Applied Linguistics 26 (3): 293–316. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/applin/ami010
Hauser, E. (2011). On the danger of exogenous theory in CA-for-SLA: A response to Hellermann and Cole (2009). Applied Linguistics 32 (3): 348–352. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/applin/amr015
Hauser, E. (2013a). Expanding resources for marking direct reported speech. In T. Greer, D. Tatsuki, and C Roever (eds) Pragmatics and Language Learning, Volume 13, 29–53. Honolulu, HI: National Foreign Language Resource Center.
Hauser, E. (2013b). Stability and change in one adult’s second language English negation. Language Learning 63 (3): 463–498. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/lang.12012
Hayano, K. (2013). Question design in conversation. In J. Sidnell and T. Stivers (eds) The Handbook of Conversation Analysis, 395–414. Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell.
Heritage, J. (1984). Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Heritage, J. and Stivers, T. (2013). Conversation analysis and sociology. In J. Sidnell and T. Stivers (eds) The Handbook of Conversation Analysis, 659–673. Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell.
Holtgraves, T. M. (2002). Language as Social Action: Social Psychology and Language Use. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Jefferson, G. (1984). On the organization of laughter in talk about troubles. In J. M. Atkinson and J. Heritage (eds) Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis, 346–369. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jefferson, G. (1990). List construction as task and resource. In G. Psathas (ed.) Interaction Competence, 63–92. Washington DC: University Press of America.
Jefferson, G. (2004). A sketch of some orderly aspects of overlap in natural conversation. In G. H. Lerner (ed.) Conversation Analysis: Studies from the First Generation, 13–31. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/pbns.125.05jef
Kasper, G. and Wagner, J. (2011). A conversation-analytic approach to second language acquisition. In D. Atkinson (ed.) Alternative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition, 117–142. London: Routledge.
Lantolf, J. P. (2000). Introducing sociocultural theory. In J. P. Lantolf (ed.) Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning, 1–26. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lantolf, J. P. (2003). Intrapersonal communication and internalization in the second language classroom. In. A Kozulin, V. S. Ageev, S. M. Miller, and B. Grindis (eds) Vygotsky’s Educational Theory in Cultural Context, 349–370. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511840975.018
Lantolf, J. P. (2011). The sociocultural approach to second language acquisition. In D. Atkinson (ed.) Alternative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition, 24–47. London: Routledge.
Lantolf, J. P. and Thorne, S. L. (2006). Sociocultural Theory and the Genesis of Second Language Development. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lantolf, J. P. and Yáñez-Prieto, M. –d. –C. (2003). Talking to yourself in Spanish: Intrapersonal communication and second language learning. Hispania 86 (1): 97–109. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20062818 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/20062818
Larrain, A. and Haye, A. (2012). The discursive nature of inner speech. Theory and Psychology 22 (1): 3–22. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0959354311423864
Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991). Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511815355
Lee, J. (2008). Gesture and private speech in second language acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 30 (2): 169–190. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0272263108080303
Maynard, D. W. (2013). Everyone and no one to turn to: Intellectual roots and contexts for Conversation Analysis. In J. Sidnell and T. Stivers (eds) The Handbook of Conversation Analysis, 11–31. Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell.
McCafferty, S. G. (1994a). Adult second language learners use of private speech: A review of studies. The Modern Language Journal 78 (4): 421–436. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.1994.tb02060.x
McCafferty, S. G. (1994b). The use of private speech by adult ESL learners at different levels of proficiency. In J. P. Lantolf and G. Appel (eds) Vygotskian Approaches to Second Language Research, 117–134. Westport, CN: Ablex Publishing.
McCafferty, S. G. (1998). Nonverbal expression and L2 private speech. Applied Linguistics 19 (1): 73–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/applin/19.1.73
McGonigle-Chalmers, M., Slater, H. and Smith, A. (2013). Rethinking private speech in preschoolers: The effects of social presence. Developmental Psychology 50 (3): 829–836. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0033909
Nguyen, H. t. and Kasper, G. (eds) (2009). Talk-in-Interaction: Multilingual Perspectives. Honolulu, HI: National Foreign Language Resource Center.
Ohta, A. S. (2001). Second Language Acquisition Processes in the Classroom: Learning Japanese. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Ono, T. and Thompson, S. A. (2003). Japanese (w)atashi/ore/boku ‘I’: They’re not just pronouns. Cognitive Linguistics 14: 321–347. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/cogl.2003.013
Parsons, T. (1937). The Structure of Social Action. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Pomerantz, A. and Fehr, B. J. (1997). Conversation Analysis: An approach to the study of social action as sense making practices. In T. A. van Dijk (ed.) Discourse as Social Interaction, 64–91. London: Sage.
San Martín Martínez, C., Boada i Calbet, H., and Feigenbaum, P. (2011). Private and inner speech and the regulation of social speech communication. Cognitive Development 26 (3): 214–229. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2011.05.001
Schegloff, E. A. (1997). Whose text? Whose context? Discourse and Society 8 (2): 165–187. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0957926597008002002
Schegloff, E. A., Jefferson, G. and Sacks, H. (1977). The preference for self-correction in the organization of repair in conversation. Language 53 (2): 361–382. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/lan.1977.0041
Sharrock, W. and Button, G. (1991). The social actor: Social action in real time. In G. Button (ed.) Ethnomethodology and the Human Sciences, 137–175. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511611827.008
Smith, H. J. (2007). The social and private worlds of speech: Speech for inter- and intramental activity. The Modern Language Journal 91 (3): 341–356. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.2007.00584.x
Stafford, C. A. (2013). What’s on your mind? How private speech mediates cognition during initial non-primary language learning. Applied Linguistics 34 (2): 151–172. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/applin/ams039
Steinbach Kohler, F. and Thorne, S. L. (2011). The social life of self-directed talk: A sequential phenomenon? In J. K. Hall, J. Hellermann, and S. Pekarek Doehler (eds) L2 Interactional Competence and Development, 66–92. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Stivers, T. (2013). Sequence organization. In J. Sidnell and T. Stivers (eds) The Handbook of Conversation Analysis, 191–209. Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell.
Wells, G. (1999). Using L1 to master L2: A response to Antón and DiCamilla’s ‘Socio-cognitive functions of L1 collaborative interaction in the L2 classroom.’ The Modern Language Journal 83 (2): 248–254. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/0026-7902.00019
Wittgenstein, L. (1953). Philosophical Investigations. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Wooffitt, R. (2005). Conversation Analysis and Discourse Analysis: A Comparative and Critical Introduction. London: Sage Publications.
Yule, G. (1997). Referential Communication Tasks. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Antón, M. and DiCamilla, F. J. (1999). Socio-cognitive functions of L1 collaborative interaction in the L2 classroom. The Modern Language Journal 83 (2): 233–247. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/0026-7902.00018
Damianova, M. K., Lucas, M., and Sullivan, G. B. (2012). Verbal mediation of problem solving in pre-primary and junior primary school children. South African Journal of Psychology 42 (3): 445–455. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/008124631204200316
DiCamilla, F. J. and Antón, M. (2004). Private speech: A study of language for thought in the collaborative interaction of language learners. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 14 (1): 36–69. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1473-4192.2004.00053.x
Donato, R. (2000). Sociocultural contributions to understanding the foreign and second language classroom. In J. P. Lantolf (ed.) Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning, 27–50. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in Ethnomethodology. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Glenn, P. (2003). Laughter in Interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511519888
Goffman, E. (1981). Forms of Talk. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Goodwin, C. (1987). Unilateral departure. In G. Button and J. R. E. Lee (eds) Talk and Social Organisation, 206–216. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Hauser, E. (2005). Coding ‘corrective recasts’: The maintenance of meaning and more fundamental problems. Applied Linguistics 26 (3): 293–316. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/applin/ami010
Hauser, E. (2011). On the danger of exogenous theory in CA-for-SLA: A response to Hellermann and Cole (2009). Applied Linguistics 32 (3): 348–352. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/applin/amr015
Hauser, E. (2013a). Expanding resources for marking direct reported speech. In T. Greer, D. Tatsuki, and C Roever (eds) Pragmatics and Language Learning, Volume 13, 29–53. Honolulu, HI: National Foreign Language Resource Center.
Hauser, E. (2013b). Stability and change in one adult’s second language English negation. Language Learning 63 (3): 463–498. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/lang.12012
Hayano, K. (2013). Question design in conversation. In J. Sidnell and T. Stivers (eds) The Handbook of Conversation Analysis, 395–414. Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell.
Heritage, J. (1984). Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Heritage, J. and Stivers, T. (2013). Conversation analysis and sociology. In J. Sidnell and T. Stivers (eds) The Handbook of Conversation Analysis, 659–673. Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell.
Holtgraves, T. M. (2002). Language as Social Action: Social Psychology and Language Use. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Jefferson, G. (1984). On the organization of laughter in talk about troubles. In J. M. Atkinson and J. Heritage (eds) Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis, 346–369. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jefferson, G. (1990). List construction as task and resource. In G. Psathas (ed.) Interaction Competence, 63–92. Washington DC: University Press of America.
Jefferson, G. (2004). A sketch of some orderly aspects of overlap in natural conversation. In G. H. Lerner (ed.) Conversation Analysis: Studies from the First Generation, 13–31. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/pbns.125.05jef
Kasper, G. and Wagner, J. (2011). A conversation-analytic approach to second language acquisition. In D. Atkinson (ed.) Alternative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition, 117–142. London: Routledge.
Lantolf, J. P. (2000). Introducing sociocultural theory. In J. P. Lantolf (ed.) Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning, 1–26. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lantolf, J. P. (2003). Intrapersonal communication and internalization in the second language classroom. In. A Kozulin, V. S. Ageev, S. M. Miller, and B. Grindis (eds) Vygotsky’s Educational Theory in Cultural Context, 349–370. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511840975.018
Lantolf, J. P. (2011). The sociocultural approach to second language acquisition. In D. Atkinson (ed.) Alternative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition, 24–47. London: Routledge.
Lantolf, J. P. and Thorne, S. L. (2006). Sociocultural Theory and the Genesis of Second Language Development. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lantolf, J. P. and Yáñez-Prieto, M. –d. –C. (2003). Talking to yourself in Spanish: Intrapersonal communication and second language learning. Hispania 86 (1): 97–109. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20062818 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/20062818
Larrain, A. and Haye, A. (2012). The discursive nature of inner speech. Theory and Psychology 22 (1): 3–22. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0959354311423864
Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991). Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511815355
Lee, J. (2008). Gesture and private speech in second language acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 30 (2): 169–190. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0272263108080303
Maynard, D. W. (2013). Everyone and no one to turn to: Intellectual roots and contexts for Conversation Analysis. In J. Sidnell and T. Stivers (eds) The Handbook of Conversation Analysis, 11–31. Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell.
McCafferty, S. G. (1994a). Adult second language learners use of private speech: A review of studies. The Modern Language Journal 78 (4): 421–436. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.1994.tb02060.x
McCafferty, S. G. (1994b). The use of private speech by adult ESL learners at different levels of proficiency. In J. P. Lantolf and G. Appel (eds) Vygotskian Approaches to Second Language Research, 117–134. Westport, CN: Ablex Publishing.
McCafferty, S. G. (1998). Nonverbal expression and L2 private speech. Applied Linguistics 19 (1): 73–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/applin/19.1.73
McGonigle-Chalmers, M., Slater, H. and Smith, A. (2013). Rethinking private speech in preschoolers: The effects of social presence. Developmental Psychology 50 (3): 829–836. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0033909
Nguyen, H. t. and Kasper, G. (eds) (2009). Talk-in-Interaction: Multilingual Perspectives. Honolulu, HI: National Foreign Language Resource Center.
Ohta, A. S. (2001). Second Language Acquisition Processes in the Classroom: Learning Japanese. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Ono, T. and Thompson, S. A. (2003). Japanese (w)atashi/ore/boku ‘I’: They’re not just pronouns. Cognitive Linguistics 14: 321–347. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/cogl.2003.013
Parsons, T. (1937). The Structure of Social Action. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Pomerantz, A. and Fehr, B. J. (1997). Conversation Analysis: An approach to the study of social action as sense making practices. In T. A. van Dijk (ed.) Discourse as Social Interaction, 64–91. London: Sage.
San Martín Martínez, C., Boada i Calbet, H., and Feigenbaum, P. (2011). Private and inner speech and the regulation of social speech communication. Cognitive Development 26 (3): 214–229. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2011.05.001
Schegloff, E. A. (1997). Whose text? Whose context? Discourse and Society 8 (2): 165–187. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0957926597008002002
Schegloff, E. A., Jefferson, G. and Sacks, H. (1977). The preference for self-correction in the organization of repair in conversation. Language 53 (2): 361–382. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/lan.1977.0041
Sharrock, W. and Button, G. (1991). The social actor: Social action in real time. In G. Button (ed.) Ethnomethodology and the Human Sciences, 137–175. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511611827.008
Smith, H. J. (2007). The social and private worlds of speech: Speech for inter- and intramental activity. The Modern Language Journal 91 (3): 341–356. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.2007.00584.x
Stafford, C. A. (2013). What’s on your mind? How private speech mediates cognition during initial non-primary language learning. Applied Linguistics 34 (2): 151–172. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/applin/ams039
Steinbach Kohler, F. and Thorne, S. L. (2011). The social life of self-directed talk: A sequential phenomenon? In J. K. Hall, J. Hellermann, and S. Pekarek Doehler (eds) L2 Interactional Competence and Development, 66–92. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Stivers, T. (2013). Sequence organization. In J. Sidnell and T. Stivers (eds) The Handbook of Conversation Analysis, 191–209. Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell.
Wells, G. (1999). Using L1 to master L2: A response to Antón and DiCamilla’s ‘Socio-cognitive functions of L1 collaborative interaction in the L2 classroom.’ The Modern Language Journal 83 (2): 248–254. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/0026-7902.00019
Wittgenstein, L. (1953). Philosophical Investigations. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Wooffitt, R. (2005). Conversation Analysis and Discourse Analysis: A Comparative and Critical Introduction. London: Sage Publications.
Yule, G. (1997). Referential Communication Tasks. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Published
2015-07-30
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Hauser, E. (2015). Private Speech as Social Action. Language and Sociocultural Theory, 2(2), 119-138. https://doi.org/10.1558/lst.v2i2.26615
