Alcohol

After having reviewed the various studies in the private speech literature, which point at different functions of private (and social) speech in different contexts, a strong case can be made for doing away with the functional dichotomy of private and social speech as solely self-regulatory and communicative, respectively. In its place, a more context-dependent model of verbal mediation of behaviour is being proposed here (Fig. 2.2), which takes into account the dual nature of speech as a process and a product, and hence allows both private and social speech to have an effect on the self as well as on others, by acting directly as a process and indirectly as a product.

As discussed earlier in Section 2.2.1.1, the socio-cultural understanding of verbal mediation of behaviour is the process through which speech as a cultural and psychological tool is employed to control and transform one’s own and other’s social and cognitive activity, in order to attain a desired goal. Based on this definition, which involves mediation of one’s own as well as others’ behaviour, speech can have both a regulatory/cognitive as well as a communicative/social function, for oneself and for others. The model proposed below outlines the various ways in which these functions may be achieved for the self and for others, through both private and social speech, depending upon the context in which such a function is actualised.

Private speech Social speech

Apre Bfol Cpre Dfol

H fol F_fol form of speech A-private_preceding_self_process B-private_following_self_process C-social_preceding_other_process D-social_following_other_process E-private_preceding_other_product F-private_following_other_product G-social_preceding_self_product H-social_following_self_product

speech profile types:

pre: preceding fol: following

Figure 2.2 Pictorial depiction of the Contextual Model of Verbal Mediation, showing the eight possible speech profiles (A-H) -

combinations of form of speech, (private or social speech), timing of speech (preceding or following), site of action of speech (self or other) and means of action (process or product).

process product means of action: G pre E pre OTHER SELF

site of action of speech

timing of speech:

Forms of speech

In this model, social and private speech are seen as identifiably different forms of speech, wherein social speech is directed at and adapted to the listener while private speech is not directed at or adapted to a listener in particular. While the functional distinction between private and social speech might be difficult to make, researchers whose studies have been reviewed above still concur that the two forms of speech are clearly distinguishable on the basis of linguistic, paralinguistic and contextual analyses of the speech utterances.

Sites and means of action

In the model, the self and the other are not necessarily the entities to whom the speech utterance is addressed, but rather, they refer to the site of action upon which the utterance has an effect vis-à-vis its function. The speech utterance can act on these sites through two means of action either as a process - wherein the function of the utterance is achieved through the ‘act of saying’, or as a product - wherein the function of the utterance is achieved through the appropriation of the meaning of ‘what is said’. Hence, private speech may have an effect on the self through the process of speaking, and even simultaneously, it may have an effect on others, by acting as a product of speech. Similarly, social speech may affect others through the process of speaking, while the content or product of the speech itself may also influence the self.

Timing of speech

These effects can take place through two types of temporal relation between speech and the mediated behaviour. The first type of speech precedes mediated behaviour in time and may be classified as preceding. In this type of temporal relation with behaviour, speech may be involved in various functions such as planning the subsequent mediated behaviour, directing others towards subsequent behaviour, announcing upcoming behaviour, etc. The actual function of such speech may depend upon the specific context in which it is used for oneself or for others, or both. Such type of speech may be compared to the ‘control processes’ in the Nelson and Narens’ model (1990, refer to Section 2.4.4 for a description of the model) which are defined as the flow of information from the meta-level (e.g., metacognitive representation of the task) to the object-level (e.g., task- relevant behaviour). Hence speech which precedes task-relevant behaviour at the object-level may carry information from the meta-level, and therefore change the state of the object-level, by mediating the task-relevant behaviour at the object-level. The second type of speech follows just-

completed or ongoing relevant behaviour in time, and may be classified as following. In such a temporal relation with behaviour, speech may be involved in functions such as providing a commentary of the just-completed relevant behaviour, reporting the conclusions arrived at by the previous monitoring behaviour, evaluating the efficacy of the previous behaviour, focusing on the ongoing behaviour, etc. Such types of speech may be compared to the ‘monitoring processes’ in the Nelson and Narens’ model (1990) which are defined as the flow of information from the object- level (task-relevant behaviour) to the metal-level (metacognitive representation of the task). Hence speech which follows task-relevant behaviour at the object-level may carry information about the current state of the object-level to the meta-level, and hence monitor and report any changes made at the object-level. In the situations where speech follows a particular behavior, the relevant behaviour is not the behaviour being directly transformed or mediated. However, reporting on the relevant behaviour through speech results in verbalising the information relevant to the behaviour in question, which in turn may be employed for mediating subsequent behaviour. This cycle can be compared to the cyclical flow of information between the meta and objects-levels in the Nelson and Narens’ model (1990). Thus, based on the timing of speech with respect to relevant behaviour, speech may be classified as preceding or following.

Hence, the combinations of the two forms of speech and timing of speech, with the two sites of action of speech and the means of action of speech by which they produce an effect at any site of action, result in eight different speech profiles, (depicted in the model by the alphabets A to H, Fig. 2.2). These speech profiles represent the various ways in which verbal mediation of one’s own and others’ behaviour takes place. The presence of these speech profiles can be determined by examining the features of a particular context in which the speech is produced. These contextual features would hence include - who the speech is directed at and adapted to (social or private), when is the speech produced in relation to the relevant behaviour (preceding or following behaviour), who does it have an effect on (self or other) and how this effect is produced (as a process or as a product). Thus, it may be possible that the same speech utterance is categorised as two different speech profiles, based on the different means by which the same utterance has a simultaneous effect on the self and the other. This would necessarily require observing the effect of the speech utterance on the behaviour of the self or others, rather than assuming such an effect simply based on the content of the speech.

Hence the actual function of speech during verbal mediation of behaviour may be derived from this model by determining the profile of the speech based on its context of production, as well as the

specific content of the speech and behaviour involved in an activity or task. Contextual speech functions, thus derived, would be independent from attributing any a priori function to the form of speech (e.g., communicative and regulatory function for social and private speech, respectively; refer to Section 2.5.3.4 on the confusion between form and function of speech), timing of speech (guiding and concluding function for preceding and following speech, respectively; refer to Section 2.5.5 on attributing function based on temporal order of speech), and site of action of speech (private and social for speech acting on self and other, respectively).