Final Intro to c Act Analysis and Its Application to Social and Private Speech Data Usp 29aug2012

8/22/2019 Final Intro to c Act Analysis and Its Application to Social and Private Speech Data Usp 29aug2012

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Introduction to Conversational-Act Analysis

And Its Application to Social and Private Speech Data

Peter Feigenbaum, Ph.D., Fordham University

1. Introduction to Conversational-Act Analysis And Its Application to Social and Private Speech DataThe aim of this workshop is to teach you a method for analyzing speech that will enable you to identify themost basicspeech acts that a speaker performs every time he or she utters words in a conversation. The

decision procedure for analyzing utterances and the classification system for identifying speech acts were

developed by my mentor, John Dore (1979). He is the linguist who gave appliedspeech acts the name

conversational acts. My reason for teaching you this method is to convince you that a simple but

powerful tool exists that can be applied to empirical data to verify and validate Lev Vygotskys (1930-

1935/1978, 1934/1987) theory of psychological development. I will work hard to make the relationship

between conversational acts and Vygotskys theory of the development of words and their meanings as clear

as possible. The deal is: if I convince you that conversational-act analysis is an appropriate method for

testing Vygotskys theory, then you have to promise to start conducting Vygotskian research! Do we have a

deal?

2. Part I. Conversational-Act Analysis and Its Application to Social Speech Data3. 1) IntroductionA Brief History ofSpeech Actsand Applied Conversational Acts (C-Acts)4. In a series of lectures that he delivered at Harvard University over 50 years ago, the philosopher of language

John Austin (1962) argued persuasively that speech utterances perform actions. Simply by saying certain

words, people make claims, take oaths, show respect, apologize, criticize, marry, and initiate a host of other

interpersonal and cultural interactions that are too numerous to mention. Austin suggested there could be

more than a thousand verbs in the English language that describe the many actions that people perform

simply by speaking.

What John Austin developed through the course of his lectures was the conceptof speech acts. This highly

generalized and abstract concept became more articulated and concrete in the able hands of another

philosopher, John Searle (1976). Searle extracted the essential features of the concept, developed a

taxonomy of types, and articulated the theory necessary to construct a conceptual model. At the center of his

model is a speech utterance, which Searle refers to as a locution. When a locution is deployed in

conversation, the speaker uses the locution to perform an act (or acts) of communication. The particular

form that an utterance takes, plus the tone of voice and the circumstances of its delivery, provide a listener

with clues as to the speakers intentions. A speakers intentions are to produce a speech act. According to

Searle, a locution is delivered with an attitude, which he referred to as the illocutionary force. It is the

specific features of a locution and its illocutionary force that a listener must attend to in order to recognize

the speakers speech act. Furthermore, once a listener grasps the speakers intended speech act, he or she

may also infer that there are obligations or expectations related to the speech act. What response the listener

makes to the speech act Searle refers to as theperlocutionary effect.

To simplify this model, consider the following analogy between performing a speech act and playing the

game ofbilliards. During ones turn at billiards, the object is to use the cue stickto apply force to the cue

ballso that it bounces off the cushions and strikes the redand green balls. In this analogy, the cue ball


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represents the utterance, or locution. The utterance is delivered with a measured amount of force, and

perhaps with some spindepending on precisely where the cue ball is struck. This represents the

illocutionary force. The intention being, of course, to move the cue ball so that it will contact the green and

red balls in a very specific waynamely, in a manner that will set up the next turn. The green and red balls

represent the listeners in this analogy.

5. 2) Dores System for Classifying Basic Conversational Acts6. The concept of a speech act that I just described can actually be put to an empirical test using John Dores

(1979) classification scheme. What Dore did was to take the concept of speech acts and apply it to actual

utterances of interpersonal speech. Dore invented the name conversational acts, or c-acts to distinguish

the applied version of speech acts from the conceptual one.

7. He devised a procedure for analyzing childrens speech utterances that enables a researcher to identify thebasic speech acts being performed. Notice that there are several basic categories of conversational acts:

assertions, requests, expressions, and responses. These are the basic acts that everyone performs when they

speak. You can eithertellsomeone about something, asksomeone about something, emote to someone

about something, orrespondto someone about something. And you can do allof these things with just one

utteranceif youre strategic about it. The status of the category performatives is still being debated, but

Dore (1979) included these particular acts because the children in his experiment performed them.

Performatives are acts that one accomplishes simply by saying the right words. Regulatives are acts that

are useful for keeping conversation flowing smoothly.

I need to point out that I believe that asecond tierof conversational acts can be and should be constructed

on top of the foundation created by these basic categories. I think it will become apparent to you all as we

go through some examples that a number of other acts are performed on top of the basic foundation

provided by assertions, requests, expressions, and responses. Flirting, deceiving, threatening, joking,

avoiding, and criticizing are but a few examples. Thus, there is more work to be done fleshing out a

complete taxonomy of conversational acts.

8. One other noteworthy property of this classification scheme is the tight relation between some of the requesttypes and their corresponding response types. In order to respond appropriately in a conversation, a

developing child is faced with the difficult task of trying to comprehend the implicit rules of dialogue. With

regard to the relationship between one utterance and another in conversation, nowhere is that relationship

manifested more clearly than in the relationship between a question and an answer. For that reason,

question-answer exchanges may be just the type that children need to grasp the logic of dialogue. I also wish

to point out that Dore (1979) introduced the category of Responses into the classification system because

it is a meaningful category if you study speech acts in real-life conversation. Neither Searle (1976) nor

Austin (1962) noticed the need for this category when speech acts were still at a conceptualstage.

9. 3) An Example of the Application of Dores Classification System: A Passage from Dostoevsky Now I would like to show you an example of how this classification of basic conversational acts looks when

it is applied to data. Rather than presenting typical conversational data where speakers use different

linguistic expressions to convey the same C-act, I think it would be far more illustrative to use the rare

instance of a conversation involving the exchange of only one linguistic expression that is intended to

convey different C-acts. Such an example would provide a real acid test for Dores (1979) classification


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system. Where can we find such an example? In Chapter 7 of Vygotskys (1934/1962) Thought and

Language, of course, where he quotes a passage from Dostoevskys (1873) The Diary of a Writer.

Fortunately, Dostoevsky does all of the heavy lifting with respect to determining the communicative

intentions of the speakers, leaving to us the easy task of picking the C-acts off the list and simply recording

them. The passage describes a conversation among several drunken workmen that consists entirely of one

uncouth word. This curse word will be designated in the following example as [expletive].

10.

One Sunday night I happened to walk for some fifteen paces next to a group of six drunken workmen,and I suddenly realized that all thoughts, feelings, and even a whole chain of reasoning could be

expressed by that one noun, which is moreover extremely short.

11. One young fellow said it harshly and forcefully, to express his utter contempt for whatever it was theyhad all been talking about.

12. Another answered with the same noun but in a quite different tone and sensedoubting that the negativeattitude of the first one was warranted.

13. A third suddenly became incensed against the first and roughly intruded on the conversation, excitedlyshouting the same noun, this time as a curse and obscenity.

14. Here the second fellow interfered again, angry at the third, the aggressor, and restraining him, in thesense of Now why do you have to butt in, we were discussing things quietly and here you come and start

swearing. And he told this whole thought in one word, the same venerable word, except that he alsoraised his hand and put it on the third fellows shoulder.

15. All at once a fourth, the youngest of the group, who had kept silent till then, probably having suddenlyfound a solution to the original difficulty which had started the argument, raised his hand in a transport ofjoy and shouted . . . Eureka, do you think? I have it? No, not eureka and not I have it; he repeated the

same unprintable noun, one word, merely one word, but with ecstasy, in a shriek of delightwhich was

apparently too strong,

16. because the sixth and the oldest, a glum-looking fellow, did not like it and cut the infantile joy of theother one short, addressing him in a sullen, exhortative bass and repeating . . . yes, still the same noun,

forbidden in the presence of ladies but which this time clearly meant What are you yelling yourself

hoarse for?

17. So, without uttering a single other word, they repeated that one beloved word six times in a row, one afteranother, and understood one another completely. (p. 143-144)

18.4) Dores Decision Procedure for Identifying Basic Conversational Acts19.In the passage I just read, Dostoevsky (1873) interprets the speech acts for us. So what would it take for us

to do that interpretive work ourselves? Dore (1979) devised a decisionprocedure for analyzing childrensspeech that enables a researcher to identify the basic speech acts being performed. The analysis is applied toone utterance at a time.

The first step begins by determining: a) the literal semantic meaningof the words contained in the utterance

which the philosopher of language Jerrold Katz (1972) articulated in grammatical terms. He described the

semantic meaning of asentence as a logical proposition, composed of a logical subject, a predicate, and

modifying phrases. Of course, not all turns at talk are complete sentences, or even complete phrases, but for

those utterances that do take the form of a sentence, this is certainly the first step. This part of the analysis

answers the superficial question: What did the other person justsay? Now it is time to ask the deeper

question: What did the other person mean bysayingthat?

Step b) attempts to peel the onion by looking for clues about the speakers communicative intentionsin

other words, theircommunicative act. The particular way that grammar is used, or the vocal emphasis that

the speaker places on a particular clause or word can be evidence ofsarcasm, for examplethus signaling a

joke has been made.


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In step c) the analysis moves on to novelinformationanything new that has been introduced either into the

conversation or the ongoing activity. The pioneering work of Michael Halliday (1970) revealed the

importance of novel information in maintaining joint attention among participants in a conversation. As

novelty flows, so flows the topic of attention.

Step d) asks the analyst to examine what the speaker has been saying and doing over the past few turns.

That information could be relevant to determining the speakers communicative intentions.

Step e) looks at the interaction. Both the speech and the actions of the participants in relation to one another

provide clues that could enable a researcheror a listenerto recognize one or more of the basic

conversational acts. Catherine Garvey (1975) did much of the ground-breaking work to establish an

understanding of these relations.

Finally, in step f) the analysis shifts to the physical and social and cultural properties of the situation that

might have a bearing on the interpretation of the utterance. Here, one would want to consult the numerous

communicative channels that speakers conventionally use to convey speech acts: intonational stress on

particular words, emotional tone, vocal timber and volume, choice of words and syntax, as well as the

relationship of the utterance to the conversational topic, to ongoing activity, the social situational, the

physical circumstanceseven the participants awareness of one anothers knowledge. Lewis (1972)

described in detail the sorts of contextual features that could influence the interpretation of an utterance.

At this point, an analyst should have enough information to choose a particular conversational act or acts

from Dores (1979) classification table.

20.5) An Example of the Application of Dores Decision Procedure to Social Speech Data21.Background: A Social Speech Dialogue

[Show SS Episode 1 uninterrupted (full-screen)] [Show SS Episode 1 uninterrupted (minimize screen)With Transcript in Excel] [Show SS Episode 1 in stop-action (minimize screen)With C-Act Codes in Excel]

22.6) A Participatory ExerciseApplying Dores Decision Procedure and Classification System [Show Remaining SS Episode 1 uninterrupted (minimize screen)With Transcript in Excel] [Show Remaining SS Episode 1 in stop-action (minimize screen)With C-Act Codes in Excel]

23.7) The Relevance of C-Act Analysis to Vygotskys Theory of the Development ofWord Meaning

The best way I know to introduce to you the dynamic character of Vygotskys (1934/1987) theory ofword

meaningis by marshaling Vygotskys own words.

24.He gets right to the heart of the matter in this passagewhich we will consider in several pieces.The first line of this passage informs us that the activity ofproducing words(a.k.a. speaking) and the

activity ofcomprehending words(a.k.a., thinking) are united by marriage, but that each originates from a


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different clan. In certain respects they are complete and total opposites, each behaving in accordance with its

own laws of motion.

The passage highlighted in blue summarizes the ontogenetic direction in which the activity of speaking

develops, with particular reference to its linguistic structures.

In the portion in red, Vygotsky stumbles a bit, unsure of which linguistic structures to associate with this

movement. But his characterization of its direction is clear: Thestructures of meaningdevelop in the

opposite direction from those of spoken language.

Finally, he concludes by making clear that this is a marriage composed of the conflict of opposites. (In terms

of linguistic structures, he seems to have settled on the pendulum swinging between wordandsentence.)

25.Just so that were all absolutely clear about this dynamic, lets briefly review the relationship. On theexternal-vocal-word-speaking side of the aisle we have the development from word to monologue. (A

monologue is defined as a single turn at talk consisting of two or more sentences). On the internal-

semantic-meaning-thinking side of the aisle we have structures ofmeaning that are roughly associated with

each linguistic structure. (Forgive me for these descriptionsthey are only intended to fill a conceptual slot

in this scheme.) Now, for competent adult speakers, the proper match between the linguistic structures onthe left and the semantic structures on the right is horizontal. Each line in this table identifies a separate

pairing of vocal and semantic forms.

26.But for an infant at the beginning of the developmental process, the meanings to be expressed are global andundifferentiated. Ironically, the only linguistic structures available to communicate this global meaning are

the tiniest linguistic structures of allindividual words.

27.The tools for articulating global meaning are supplied as an infant begins to expand his or her linguisticrepertoire with the addition of simple phrases.

28.With each new set of structures that develops, speaking and thinking advance.29.The interpenetration of speaking and thinking becomes deeper as development proceeds.30.The unity of thinking and speaking is maintained throughout the developmental process, even though the

pairing of word and meaning structures is not stable.

31.Stability is achieved only at the end of the developmental process, when the conflict between thinking andspeaking reaches a compromise. This compromise is nothing more than the set of social conventions

established by the adult speech community. These conventions include the assignment of particular

meanings to particular words, rules for sequencing words into grammatical structures, and rules for taking

turns and for exchanging speech utterances in conversation.

32.8) Psychological Subjectand Predicate, both Withinand BetweenConversational ActsI have introduced you to Vygotskys (1934/1987) theory of the development of word meaning, but I have

not yet demonstrated the relevance of conversational-act analysis to his theory. To do so, I need to drill

down to the level of speaking and listening roles, and show how they fit into a dialogue.


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33.First, the speaker (Person A) produces a speech utterance and the listener (Person B) comprehends it. Indialogue, this speaking and thinking unit is followed by another in which the participants switch roles:

Person B becomes the speaker and Person A becomes the listener. (We have just encountered our first

example of the dialectical pattern: A-B, B-A.)

34.Lets dig down further. Vygotsky (1934/1987) proposed that the movement from thinking to speaking (andback again) involves traversing five planes. Tatiana Akhutina (2003) has done some marvelous work

describing these planes. The first step in the formation of an utterance is the emergence of a motive. Second,the crystallization of the general intentionthegerm of a thought or a schema. This germ is then expressed

in step three as inner speech. The more facile a person is at conducting strategically planned internal

conversations, the more options that exist for reflecting backwards upon thoughts and motives, and for

thinking forwards toward designing an appropriate speech utterance to fit the situation. The formulation of a

speech plan in the motor cortex constitutes the fourth step, while the fifth step consists in carrying out the

plan and actually utteringand performingthe speech.

35.Listening takes the opposite journey: it begins with the speech produced by another and ends inside thelisteners consciousness. Speaking moves from inside to outside, while listening moves from outside to

inside.

36.Okay, lets draw a box around our first speaking and thinking unit.37.And since we need twosuch units for a conversational exchange, lets put in a second speaking and thinking

unit. So, Person A initiates a conversational exchange by producing a speech utterance, and Person B listens

and comprehends Person As utterance. Then Person B responds to the utterance he or she just

comprehended by producing an utterance in return. And the chain continues.

38.Vygotsky (1934/1987) approached the phenomenon of conversational initiation and response from theperspective of what he termed the psychological subject and psychological predicate of a verbal

communication. An utterance (or idea) that is held in consciousness is apsychological subject, whereas anutterance that is produced in response to what is in consciousness is a psychological predicate. According to

Bakhtin (1981), every utterance responds to an utterance produced by a prior speaker. This is true regardless

of whether the prior utterance was produced moments before or centuries before. Conversely, every listener

confronts another persons utterance as an initiation of a new topic of conversation. The words are the joint

focus of attention for both participants, and point at the shared topic of the communication. Thus, speakers

relate to utterances as psychological predicates, or conversational responses, whereas listeners relate to the

same utterances as psychological subjects, or conversational initiations.

39.But psychological subjects and predicates dont exist just between utterances; they also exist withinutterances. And once again, speakers and listeners confront them from opposite perspectives. Lets startwith thespeaker.

In producing a speech utterance, a speaker starts with a motive and then conceives of an act of speech

communication, orspeech act, that will fulfill that motive. This activity component of a verbal

communication is perceived by the speaker as a psychological subject. It is the thought being held in

consciousness at that moment.


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40.With the help of inner speech, the speaker responds to this topic that is being held in his or herconsciousness by conceiving of words or text that will complete the speech act. This component is

perceived by the speaker as a psychological predicate. Together, they constitute a complete speech act.

41.Now the process shifts to the listenerrole. A listeners task is to reconstructthe entire speech act, beginningwith the text or utterance. To the listener, the words constitute the psychological subject. Their literal

meaning provides the topical focus of the speech act.

42.Once the listener (Person B) comprehends whatwas said, he or she must inferfrom the availablecontextual evidencewhy it was said. This inner speech query leads to the reconstruction of the entire

speech act.

43.Now Person B is holding Person As speech act in consciousness, and cant help forming an involuntaryreaction to it. It may take some serious inner speech conversation to decide how to respond. Whatever

speech acts Person B decides upon, he or she will perceive that communicative intention as a psychological

subject.

44.As all speakers do, they respond to a psychological subject with a psychological predicatewhich takes theform of a verbalization. The speech act is completed only when it is put into the form of words to be uttered.

45.The process then shifts again to the listener role, where it repeats. The listener confronts the words first, andmust establish the meaning of the verbalization.

46.Once the shared topic has been comprehended, the listener must complete the reconstruction of the speechact, the communicative intention, and if possible, the motive behind it all.

I would like to point out that the two main components of a speech actthe oral textand the communicative

contextcorrespond to the two parts of verbal thinking that Vygotsky (1934/1987) termed meaning and

sense. The words, according to Vygotsky, convey the semantic meaning, which is the explicit and more

or less stable part of the communication. The communicative context in which the words are embedded

conveys the sense, and is the implicit and more elastic part of the communication that serves to qualify

and modify the literal meaning of the text. Gregory Bateson (1972), the noted anthropologist, referred to the

textual part of a speech act as the communication, and the contextual part as the meta-communication

because the context determines how the text is to be regarded or understood.

End of Part 1


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Introduction to Conversational-Act Analysis

And Its Application to Social and Private Speech Data

Peter Feigenbaum, Ph.D., Fordham University

47.Part 2: Conversational-Act Analysis and Its Application to Private Speech Data 48.

1) A Brief Overview of the Social-Pr ivate-I nner-SocialPattern of Speech Development

49.The unity andconflict of opposites that characterizes the relationship between wordand meaning, orbetween speaking and thinking, is best understood when it is mapped onto an ontogenetic timeline. That

way we can visualize how the developmental process leads to the formation of stages or periods. Just to get

oriented, thinking and speaking are independent activities during the first year of life. A childs first words

are evidence that they have become united into one activitya dialogical activity involving others. The

movement from part to whole that is characteristic of speaking is inseparably tied to the movement of

thinking, which is from whole to part. Each movement spurs on the other, and each serves as both cause and

effect of the other.

50.Here I impose divisions along the timeline representing developmental stages caused by transformations ofboth a functional and structural nature. The timing of these divisions is approximate, and is based on

predictions made by Vygotsky (1934/1987), plus empirical evidence. First, consider the division of speech

into two modes of production: interpersonal and personal speech. Interpersonal speech is typical back-and-

forth conversation. An infants induction into this basic mode of speaking and communicating exposes him

or her to all of the behaviors associated with social speech dialogue, such as speaking, listening, initiating,

responding, and turn-taking. Intellectually, native, biological intelligence based mainly on implicit learning

(Reber, 1989) is the dominant cognitive system during infancy. And so it is into that system that the first

words become assimilated. But like a Trojan Horse, words will gradually assemble themselves into a

powerful force that acts from within.

At approximately age 3 (earlier for precocious children), a childs struggle to reconcile the competing

demands of speaking and thinking leads to the creation of an alternative mode of engagementpersonal

speech. This is speech intended for a persons own consumption, not for anyone elses. It is most prevalent

during play activitiesparticularly, socio-dramatic and fantasy-play activities. By conducting interpersonal

speech conversations with imaginedcharacters, the young child practices imaginingthe points of view of

the speakers and the listeners.

In the early half of the private speech stage, a childs use ofprivate speech helps to enact the play activity,

but ironically, the child is essentially unaware of this fact. When the child does become aware of private

speechs influence, the relationship between private speech and practical activity changes dramatically.

From that point onward, the child deliberately invokes private speech in order to regulate both play and

problem-solving activities. This is possible because private speechlike social speechhas the power to

steer the speakers attention toward any topiceven a task analysis. With the help of this speech, a child

acquires the ability to plan the solution to problems.

But solving problems out loud using conversation addressed only to oneself is socially disruptive,

particularly if the task is interpersonal speech communication. Some conversations require that participants

analyze what they heard, reflect on the implications, and then plan an appropriate response. There is recent


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evidence that school-age children engage in private speech problem-solving right in the middle of a

challenging interpersonal speech communication task. But there is also evidence that children learn to

inhibit the respiratory component of the act of vocalization soon after age 4. According to Vygotsky

(1934/1987), by about age 7, personal speech is physically transformed into inner speech, which is a

silent form of speaking that is inaudible to others. In inner speech, a person speaks and hears words

internally.

With the ability to think dialogically and conversationally inside ones own head, a developing pre-adolescent is now equipped to re-engage interpersonal conversations at a new level of understanding and

skill. He or she can speak intelligently during aspeakingturn by engaging in inner speech thinking and

planning during the preceding listeningturn. This brings the developmental process full circle. It should

be noted that development is not complete for most of us at age 12, for there is much in our vocabularies

and in our understanding that never reaches its developmental potential. While mastery of the process of

learningones native language is essentially complete by about age 12, it could take more than a lifetime to

complete the process ofapplyingones mastery to all of the verbal and non-verbal material that a person

experiences.

51.One other feature to consider before we wrap up this segment is the correspondence between the stages ofthinking and speaking in particular and the stages of the dialectical or developmental process in generalas

originally conceived by the philosopher Frederick Hegel (1874). There are two stages that anchor

developmentthe initial stage and the final stage. Between them is the stage ofnegation or inversion, in

which one of the conflicting opposites asserts its dominance. This change in dominance from Stage A to

Stage B draws out new qualities but also leads to new obstacles. The process moves forward when Stage B

is negated by Stage A, resulting in a state of affairs in which the key properties of Stage B are incorporated

into Stage A.

In this case, social speech dialogues based on an unanalyzed and implicit understanding of dialogue are first

transformed into a means for producing analyzed and explicit understanding. Then this new verbal form ofexplicit thinking is structurally transformed into an abbreviated and silent form of explicit thinking. Finally,

there is a return to social speech dialogues, only this time the developing adolescent has inner speech as a

tool. With inner speech, nave social speech can be augmented and transformed into intelligent, rational

social speech. The pattern, incidentally, is A-B, B-A.

52.2) Why Private Speech is Necessary for Children Who Are Learning to ThinkDialogically53.Lets briefly return to our model of speaking and thinking based on the notion of psychological subject

and psychological predicate. Notice that the movement from speaking to listening is a cooperative and

public activity in which the participants are each assigned a reciprocal or complementary taskthe speaker

regards the utterance as a psychological predicate, whereas the listener regards the same utterance as a

psychological subject. The speaker utters words, while the listener comprehends meanings.

But the movement from listening to speaking crosses a bridge which links the next utterance to the last one.

The new utterance must constitute a culturally appropriate response to the prior one. Fortunately, the

division of labor in a dialogue is constructed in such a way that the movement from listening to speaking is

conducted entirely within the consciousness of a single individual.


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54.We can illustrate this simply by shifting our box over. By means of interpersonal speech, a developing childhas an intimate involvement in directing the movement from listening to speaking.

But according to Piaget and Inhelder (1963/1977), in order for children (or adults) to comprehend the logic

of a psychological system, they must understand how to reverse their movements within it. In the case of a

dialogical system such as conversation, this would mean having an intimate involvement in the movement

from speaking to listening as well. In what circumstances can a single person experience thesame utterance

from the perspective of the speaker as well as that of the listener?

55.The answer is:private speech activity. During play time, young children tend to retreat from social speechin order to take advantage of the many personal uses of private speech. Besides expressing emotions, noting

difficulties, and describing and conducting imaginary play, they can also experience both sides of a

conversation. In private speech, children can get intimately involved in the activity of listening to

themselves speak.

56.3) Special Considerations in Applying Conversational-Act Analysis to Private Speech57.In social speech conversations, speakers alternate turns at talk. Each person produces a single speech

utterance per turn. A speech utterance can be as short as a single word or as long as a political address. Eachperson's utterance is interleaved with the utterances of the other person. Consequently, it is easy to identify

the start and end of any single utteranceit is bounded before and after by the other person's utterances.

Private speech presents a particular challenge to identifying the start and end of any single utterance,

however, because there is only one speaker. While breath pauses of two seconds or longer, combined with

information about grammatical structure and intonational contour, typically indicate the start and end of

utterances that are sentence-length or shorter, additional information is needed in order to determine if an

utterance is actually a monologue, consisting of many sentences.

The additional information that is needed concerns the relationship between private speech and the role it

plays in some practical activity. Imagine a stream of individual sentences, each of which relates to some

different aspect of an ongoing activity. These otherwise unrelated sentences could actually be part of a

single speech utterance simply by virtue of their being related to the same goal with respect to the activity.

58.4) Development of the Relationship Between Private SpeechActivity and PracticalActivity59.In my opinion, the most fascinating problem in Vygotskys (1934/1987) theory is the developmental

transition that occurs in the relationship between private speech and practical activity. This change occurs

approximately when a child is between five and seven years of age. Vygotsky described this transition with

an anecdote about a child drawing a picture. At the beginning of the activity, the boy used his private speech

to comment on his drawing after the fact. Later, he remarked aloud to himself as an accompaniment to his

activity. Then, when his pencil broke, he uttered the word broken, and then proceeded to alter his activity

by drawing a wagon with a broken wheel.

The development of conscious awareness in children may very well be rooted right herein their awareness

and understanding of the cognitive uses of private speech, which soon becomes reformulated as inner

speech. But thinking develops hand-in-hand with speaking, so we should also be investigating the


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development of conversational exchanges in private speech. After all, with the help of adults, children are

able tospeakdialogically long before they acquire the ability to thinkdialogically.

60.It should come as no surprise that question-answer exchanges play an important role in the development ofchildrens understanding and use of private speech. Here is the system devised by Lawrence Kohlberg and

his associates (1968) to classify the developmental stages of private speech. According to Vygotsky

(1934/1987), children start out using private speech involuntarilyto play with words, to release emotion,

and to fantasize. But with development, they begin using private speech as a means for reflecting mentally,and for guiding and planning their behavior.

61.In Kohlberg et al.s (1968) system, this turning point is signaled by a new form of private speech:Questions answered by the self! What could be more indicative of a child who has mastered an

understanding of the perspective-taking character of dialogue than his performing both turns in a

conversational exchange?

62.5) An Example of the Application of Conversational-Act Analysis to Private Speech Data 63.Background: A Private Speech Monologue

[Show PS Episode 1 uninterrupted (full-screen)] [Show PS Episode 1 uninterrupted (minimize screen)With Transcript in Excel] [Show Re-Structuring of Transcript to CaptureMonologuesin Excel] [Show PS Episode 1 in stop-action (minimize screen)With C-Act Codes in Excel]

64.6) A Participatory Exercise--Applying Conversational-Act Analysis to Private Speech Data [Show Remaining PS Episode 1 uninterrupted (minimize screen)With Transcript in Excel] [Show Remaining PS Episode 1 in stop-action (minimize screen)With C-Act Codes in Excel]

65.End of Part 2References

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