The general purpose of this study is to increase, in a classroom environment, formal communication by using reading and writing. Our research focuses on reading as a means to develop the writing of a good précis, which in its turn contributes to improve: 1) memory, vocabulary and grammatical-syntactical structures, in brief, the organization of a…

According to Lev Vygotsky, private speech has a functional value for the child during problem solving. As children grow older, private speech is thought to become inner, non-observable speech. Both private and inner speech are abbreviated. A study tested the hypothesis of the progressive abbreviation of private speech. Private speech data were…

Recently, some works have been published exploring the role of private speech as a tool for motivation, reaching beyond the classical research on its regulatory function for cognitive processes such as attention or executive function. In fact, the authors' own previous research has shown that a moderate account of spontaneous private speech of…

There are a number of views of the relationship between language and thinking. Two prominent figures in developmental psychology, Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky, proposed theories of language and thinking which also involve the notion of "communication." For Piaget, thinking develops first, and language comes along as an expression of…

This paper reviews some of the observations made by Vygotsky about the structure and content of inner speech and its precursor egocentric speech, also called private speech. Recent advances in certain areas of linguistics are used to clarify and develop these observations. In particular, the paper focuses on Vygotsky's ideas about the predicative…

This paper looks into the question of the relationship between language and thought, and in particular, various theories advanced by Soviet psychologists. These theories are to be viewed within the context of the Soviet ideological legacy which proclaims that ideas do not exist apart from language. The current Soviet position can be summarized as…

This article explores the spaces for possibilities of a pedagogy of authorship in teacher education. A critical, transformative framework is considered within the current practices and contexts of pre-service teachers. It examines ways to address students' fears in their own writing, and suggests ways to enhance confidence through authorship, so…

This review of the literature on self-speech, a subset of a communicative speech (speech not intended for nor effectively adapted for communication with others), focuses on the concept of self-control through language. The theories of six major researchers in the area of self-speech--J. Piaget, L. Vygotsky, A. Luria, H. Reese, J. Flavell, and L.…

Inner speech, the process by which words are related to and converted into conceptual thoughts, is a topic of central importance within the field of speech communication, and the exploration of its role in the cognitive processes can facilitate the development of creative, logical, and critical thinking across the liberal arts curriculum. Four…

A study was devised for investigating developmental change in the extent to which children use a speech recoding process during silent reading to obtain meaning from sentences. The subjects, 48 second and 48 sixth grade students, were shown a series of single sentences that included equal numbers of sentences at the second, fourth, and sixth grade…

Mental rehearsal is a somewhat ambiguous term in the literature of language acquisition, psychology, and second language learning. However, in second language learning it refers to an important strategic behavior involving silent covert practice of the other language, undertaken in relation to an oral or written, future or past language task. A…

A study investigated the linguistic development of three kindergarten children judged to be high, moderate, or low in emergent reading ability. Specifically, the study examined whether a developmental direction from dialogue to monologue exists in the children and whether a characteristic of thought termed "inner speech" underlies each…