Vygotsky tells that we think in 'inner speech', that develops from children thinking aloud… 'Egocentric speech, splintered off from general social speech, in time leads to inner speech, which serves both autistic and logical thinking.'
Vygotsky rejects the notion that thought is wordless... 'thought is born through words. A word devoid of thought is a dead thing; and a thought unembodied in words remains a shadow.'
He even outlines the structural characteristics of inner speech... 'With syntax and sound reduced to a minimum, meaning is more than ever in the forefront. Inner speech works with semantics, not phonetics.'
An SFL interpretation of this could be that inner speech is primarily lexical, less interpersonalised and less textualised than articulated 'social speech'. This seems consistent with my own introspective impressions. Is it with yours?
Now grammatically, reported ideas are obviously at once wordings and meanings, as are quoted locutions, but the latter quote articulated speech, while the former report inner speech.
Perhaps when we are consciously writing, we might get the impression that 'a phenomenon of experience is construed first as a meaning and then in turn as a wording', but in spontaneous speech - inner or outer - meanings and wordings are simultaneous (one and the same thing).
Again may I ask if anyone can suggest evidence from the grammar that shows otherwise?
Blogger Comments:
[1] Grammatically, reported ideas are presented as meanings, since how the meanings are actually worded is not presented; whereas quoted locutions are presented as wordings: those used to realise meanings.
[2] On the stratification model, meanings and wordings, semantics and lexicogrammar, are not 'the same thing' but two angles on 'the same thing', differing in terms of level of symbolic abstraction.
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