A Closer Look at Different Aspects of Private Speech in SLA

Abstract

Private speech is defined as the self-talk which many children in particular engage in. It leads to the inner speech that more mature individuals use to control thought and behavior. The claim in private speech is that some learners who undergo silent period engage in private conversations with themselves, which prepares them for social speech later. Private speech eventually turns to inner speech with no external articulation. Accordingly, speech comes to reflect an advance on the earliest uses of language which are social and interpersonal. Cognitive development makes it necessary for the child to move from reliance on others to reliance on his inner speech, where the control over his mental functioning takes place. Since private speech is claimed to be a universal strategy for L1 learners, a scrutiny in its dimensions would probably be beneficial for second language studies. Therefore, the present paper briefly introduces and talks about different aspects of the private speech which might be found interesting in second language studies.