8. Specific features of speech activity

Speech activity is a specific type of human activity, significantly different from other activities. Among the most important distinctive features of RD are the following.

One of the specific features of the RD is its “bipolarity”: this is the kind of activity that always has two subjects (two individuals performing it). The first is the speaker or writer, and the second is the listener or reader. The first subject of RD (Sx) in psycholinguistics is defined by the concepts transmitter, or agent; the second subject (S2) - as a receiver, or a recipient.

In a one-sided (unidirectional) version, speech activity is not “normative” (one can say that it does not exist at all in this form): there is no speech without an addressee turned “nowhere”, all the more impossible as completely independent (without perceived and analyzed) "Speech material"), the processes of listening and reading. It should be noted that the possible version of the speech activity of speaking in the absence of another person is defined in the psychology of speech and psycholinguistics as the communication of a person with himself. In this case, the person simultaneously acts as both subjects of the RD (speaker and hearer or writing and reading). This version of the implementation of RD is not typical for her, and therefore, quite common; if the basic version of the RD is impossible for some exceptional reasons, then taking into account the “social” nature of man and the social orientation of his RD, the second subject of the RD is most often created artificially. [81]

When considering this characteristic of a taxiway, one should pay attention to the fact that the second subject of speech activity simultaneously acts as its object: for example, the object of speech activity of the speaker is the listener, and the RD of the writer is the reader. The relationship of the first and second subjects of the PD in the process of speech communication can be represented in the form of the following simple scheme:

It is important to emphasize that the second subject of RD in the process of speech activity is just as active actor as the first. His speech activity, by definition, IA Winter (94, 95), proceeds as a process of "internal mental activity". This moment is quite obvious on the assumption that the tasks facing the listener and reader (full-fledged perception and deep thorough analysis of the information received and reciprocal intellectual activity in the form of creating conclusions about what is heard or read) require thorough mobilization of the recipient’s mental (intellectual) activity. .

This feature of speech activity, which is its specific structural characteristic, implies an important methodological conclusion that is directly related to the practice of speech (speech therapy) work: the full formation of speech activity in a variant corresponding to the needs of social communication is impossible without a person mastering the ways of its implementation as all the main subjects of this activity. A complete mastery of language and speech activity necessarily implies the formation of speech communication skills in relation to the content and forms of speech, speech , writing, and reading organization . The second methodological conclusion is directly related to the organization and content of pedagogical work in remedial classes: it assumes the need for pedagogical and psychological “tuning” of speech activity for listening and reading students, since these types of RDs are an indispensable condition for full-fledged verbal communication of all participants in the educational process. Another task facing teachers is to continuously monitor the course of listening and reading (“for themselves”), since these types of taxiways are, as mentioned above, externally unexpressed “processes of internal mental activity” (92, 95).

Speech activity in many ways should be defined as an intellectual activity. This follows primarily from the nature and properties of the object RD and its main objectives. The subject of RD is a thought - a mental reflection in the consciousness of a person of one or another fragment of the surrounding reality. Adequate (accurate and complete) reflection in the speech of its subject necessarily implies a detailed objective analysis of the displayed, the involvement of all basic mental actions and operations, and above all the operations of analysis and synthesis. Accordingly, the main objectives of speech activity are: the creation (formation) and the formulation of thoughts (of a certain mental content) for productive types of RD and adequate reproduction of the “alien” given, thoughts for receptive types of this activity. One of the most important tasks of the RD is to adequately display one or another mental content using a system of specific signs - signs of language and auxiliary "metalanguage" (non-verbal) signs. This, in turn, involves the conscious selection and purposeful handling of data by means of speech communication, their differentiated use, which also refers to the number of intellectual actions and operations. An important role in the implementation of speech activity is played by the so-called. “Semantic control” of the process of its implementation and results, which is also impossible without the participation of the mechanism of understanding the content side of speech and its compliance with the norms of a given language (95, 133, 134). The crucial importance of the mechanism of reflection for the implementation of speech activity has already been considered by us above; here I would like to emphasize that he himself is one of the components (or components) of the RD, as it is realized through one of the forms of speech activity, namely, through the inner speech of a person.

A specific feature of speech activity (distinguishing it from many other human activities) is that it has not one, but two main options for implementation. The first and foremost of these is the version of the implementation of RD in the form of speech communication, verbal communication; the second is an individual “internal” speech activity, the form of realization of which is internal speech. The second (in terms of prevalence, but not significance) version of the realization of speech activity is closely connected with the mental process of thinking and all intellectual activity in general.

Based on the foregoing, the definition of speech activity as a speech- thinking activity is fully justified, and the leading theorists of Russian speech therapy (BM Gryshpun, RI Lalaeva, TB Fi-Licheva, VK Vorobyova, pay special attention to this). SN Shakhovskaya, EF Sobotovich, etc.) and that is shared by many domestic psycholinguistic scientists (87, 95, 227). The definition of RD as a verbal and cogitative activity correlates quite well with the scientific concept of the dialectical interrelation of the processes of thinking and speech, developed by L.S. Vygotsky and his students and followers in the domestic psychological science. Based on this scientific concept, human speech activity (as a holistic, unified intellectualized process, in all its manifold manifestations) can, albeit with some assumption, be defined as a peculiar dialectical unity of thought and speech (as processes of generating and perceiving speech utterances). At the same time, it should be noted that the question of interpreting RD as a verbal-thinking activity is not a definitively “solved question” in modern psycholinguistics, but is among its topical research problems.

The peculiarity of speech activity, which distinguishes it from other types of human activity, lies in the special character of its tools, which serve as signs of the language. With the help of language as an integral system of signs, people interact in the process of knowing the world, in the process of joint labor and other socially useful activities. In this regard, speech activity is defined in linguistics and psycholinguistics as a language activity - an activity, one of the important aspects of which is the multidimensional operating with the means of language. It is not by chance that the speech activity is determined by A.A. Leontiev as the "process of using language for communication." The interpretation and study of RD as language activity is most vividly represented in the works of representatives of the American School of Psycholinguistics (J. Miller, N. Chomsky and others), by definition which speech activity is mainly an operational language activity.

Since the main means (units) of language in speech activity appear in their sign function, i.e., as signs of language, speech activity is also defined as sign activity.

The social nature of speech activity is also determined by the fact that this specifically human type of activity has an immediate social conditionality. Congenital (hereditary) components of RD (prerequisites for mastering speech) can be realized in ontogenetic development only under the influence of social factors mediating them . The latter include: social conditions for the upbringing and development of a child (social environment and a full-fledged “speech environment”), features and pedagogical influences of the surrounding society, conditions for training and education (“educational environment”), methodically properly organized approach to the education (formation) of speech , ensuring full cognitive and intellectual development, etc. Ensuring a positively directed influence of social factors is one of the most important aspects of speech (and, above all, speech dical) work.

From the specified specific features of human speech activity, it is possible to derive its main socially oriented “global” functions.

Speech activity is the main and universal means of communication between people in human society and at the same time the main means of communication. [82]

Thanks to speech (RD), the continuity of people's social social experience is realized. Having mastered the speech, using it, the child masters the social and historical experience accumulated by mankind in the entire previous history of its development.

Speech activity is the most important means of human knowledge (starting from childhood) of the world around him. It acts simultaneously as a universal means, and as an indispensable condition for the cognitive activity of any person.

Speech activity plays a huge role in all mental intellectual activity of a person. Speech (RD) is the main factor of mediation, which means that not a single complex form of human mental activity is formed or realized without direct or indirect participation of speech.

In the processes of cognition and creativity, people most actively use speech thinking along with the so-called nonverbal intelligence (sensory sensory perception, visual images and ideas, visual-effective and visual-figurative thinking). At the same time, it is important to note that for any person who has already mastered speech activity to a sufficiently high degree, the latter mediates and organizes so-called non - speech thinking, intellectual operations that are not directly related to speech using language signs.

In conclusion of this section, we present a diagram showing the general structure of speech activity, taking into account the main components of its components, proposed by I.А. Winter (93, 95, etc.).