Each speech utterance, each act of generating or perceiving speech is multilaterally conditioned. On the one hand, there are a number of factors that influence what content will be expressed in a statement (when speaking of content, we have in mind not only the semantics, but also such features of a statement as its modality, etc.). These are factors, primarily psychological ones. On the other hand, there are many factors that determine how certain content will be realized in speech (this includes, in addition to psychological, linguistic, stylistic, sociological, etc. factors). The nature of all these factors and the way they determine the generation of a speech utterance can be described using various theories or models.
Speech activity should be understood as the activity (behavior) of a person, to one extent or another, mediated by the signs of the language. More narrowly, speech activity should be understood as an activity in which a linguistic sign acts as a “stimulus-means,” that is, an activity in which we form a speech utterance and use it to achieve some predetermined goal. [2]
Speech has developed historically in the process of the material transforming activities of people is a form of communication mediated by language. Speech includes the processes of generating and perceiving messages for communication purposes or (in a particular case) for the purposes of regulation and control of one's own activities (Internal speech, egocentric speech). Of particular interest to psychology is, first of all, the place of speech in the system of higher mental functions of a person — in its relationship with thinking, consciousness, memory, emotions, etc.; especially those features that reflect the structure of personality and activity. Most Soviet psychologists consider speech as speech activity, acting either in the form of an integral act of activity (if it has a specific motivation that is not realized by other types of activity), or in the form of speech actions included in non-speech activity. The structure of speech activity or speech action in principle coincides with the structure of any action, that is, it includes the phases of orientation, planning (in the form of «internal programming”), implementation and control. Speech can be active, constructed each time anew, and reactive, representing a chain of dynamic speech stereotypes.
Activity is defined here as “a complex set of processes united by a common focus on achieving a specific result, which is at the same time the objective motivator of this activity, that is, what the particular need of the subject is specified in.” From this definition, the purposeful nature of the activity is clear: it implies a certain predetermined goal (which, if the act of activity is successful, is its result) and the motive that determines the setting and achievement of this goal. On the relationship of motive and goal, we still must stop in the future, when it comes to the concept of meaning.
The second distinguishing feature of activity is its structural nature, a certain internal organization. It affects, first, the fact that the act of activity consists of separate actions (“relatively independent processes subordinate to the conscious goal”). The same actions can be included in different activities and vice versa — the same result can be achieved through different actions. This affects, among other things, the “metric” nature of human activity, which makes it possible to use various methods for achieving it with a fixed goal and, in the course of fulfilling the plan, to change these methods in accordance with the changed situation. [1]
Speech activity is one of the most difficult types of activity in all its parameters. Firstly, by its organization. To begin with, speech activity extremely rarely acts as an independent, complete act of activity: usually it is included as an integral part in activities of a higher order. For example, a typical speech utterance is a utterance that somehow regulates the behavior of another person. But this means that the activity can be considered completed only if such regulation is successful. For example, I ask a table neighbor to hand me a piece of bread. The act of activity, if we take it as a whole, is not completed: the goal will be achieved only if the neighbor really gives me bread. Thus, speaking further about speech activity, we are not quite accurate: it will be of interest to us and we will not consider in the future the entire act of speech activity, but only the totality of speech actions that have their own intermediate goal, subordinate to the goal of activity as such. Speech activity is studied by various sciences. Speech activity is an object studied by linguistics and other sciences: language is a specific subject of linguistics that actually exists as an integral part of an object (speech activity) and modeled by linguists as a special system for one or another theoretical or practical purpose.
In psychology, it is customary to distinguish between two main forms of speech: external and internal. The concept of types of speech activity came into the methodology of teaching the mother tongue from the methodology of teaching a foreign language. It belongs to the famous linguist and teacher, academician Lev Vladimirovich Shcherba.
This is a concept, both methodological and psychological. Indeed, learning to read, write and write, spoken language is, in essence, the formation of specific speech skills and the speech or communicative-speech skills based on them (this refers to the use of skills to solve various specific, primarily communicative, tasks).
The concept of types of speech activity in the methodology of the native language allows us to imagine the psychological laws of the relevant skills’ formation more clearly. It is logical to expect that teaching methods, types of exercises, etc. must be correlated with the structure and formation of the corresponding psychological mechanisms, always complex and multi-level.
In practice, the need to ensure the formation of individual psychological operations and their complexes cannot but reckon with the fact of the interaction of different types of speech activity, their mutual intertwining, especially when solving complex communicative problems. Thus, underestimation of the work on the formation of phonemic hearing generates many errors in writing.
Speech has two main forms:
Internal speech is speech without sound design and proceeding using language meanings, but outside of a communicative function, internal speaking. It can be characterized by predicativity, expressed in the absence in it of words representing the subject, and the presence of only words related to the predicate.
External speech — a system of sound signals used by a person, written signs and symbols for transmitting information, the process of materialization of thought. It may be inherent in jargon and intonation. External speech includes oral (dialogic, monological) and written speech.
The main types of speech activity include:
– speaking (oral expression of thought),
– listening (listening and understanding speech)
– writing (graphic, written expression of thought) and
– reading (i.e. perception and understanding of someone else's recorded speech); distinguish reading aloud and quiet reading — reading to oneself.
These types of speech activity underlie the process of speech communication. The effectiveness and success of verbal communication depends on how much a person has the skills of these types of speech activities.
In the work, the question of the essence of speech activity is considered in detail, as one of the main types of activity. The types, forms of speech, and its structural organization are also highlighted in detail. Thus, speech activity is a complex process that can be represented as active speech — expressive, and how speech is perceived — impressive. In addition, speech can be, both external and internal, presented in the form of writing, speaking, listening, and reading.
References:
- Goikhman O. Y., Nadeina T. M. The basics of speech communication. Textbook. — M., 1997.
- Solovyova N. N. The development of thinking and mental development of a preschooler / Textbook on the culture of speech and speech communication. -M., 1996.
