6. The subject (psychological) content of speech activity

Along with the structural content, any activity, including speech, is also characterized by subject or psychological content. The subject content of the activity includes the conditions of activity, which are determined by such elements as the object, means, tools, product, result (136, 148, 95).

The subject of activity is considered as the main element of its subject content, since it largely determines the very nature of the activity (in particular, its purpose, type, form of implementation, etc.). It is in the subject is realized, "finds" the need itself - the motive of activity. As A.N. Leont'ev, “any activity of the organism is directed to a particular object, non-object activity is impossible” (136, p. 37).

The subject of activity may be either “material”, materialized, or ideal. When analyzing the main types of speech activity, it is necessary to emphasize the ideality of its subject. According to the theoretical concept of I.A. Winter, the subject of speech activity is thought as a form of reflection of the connections and relationships of objects and phenomena of the world around us (92, 94, etc.). At the same time, the purpose of such types of speech activity as speaking and writing is to form and express thoughts. In an adequate recreation of someone else’s given thought , the goal of listening and reading is realized in turn. The purpose of the thinking process within the framework of human cogitative activity is to create a thought (a mental reflection of reality surrounding us) or to analyze an already given thought (in the processes of listening and reading), which results in the formation of conclusions, that is, new, own thoughts about the subject speech. The practical conclusion arising from this definition of the subject of speech (“In order to form speech activity, it is necessary to form the child's skills of adequate - complete, accurate and clear - expression of thought”), although it does not raise any objections, still cannot be considered as methodical installation that fully meets the needs of speech (including speech therapy) work: the task indicated in it is formulated in a fairly general form.

The needs of the practice of speech work determine the need for a certain concretization, clarification of this task through the appropriate concretization of the very subject of speech activity.

In practical linguistics (methods of teaching native and foreign languages) there is the following definition of the subject of RD. The subject of speech (RD) is defined as a fragment of the surrounding reality (a public event, a natural phenomenon, a person, his appearance and inner world, objects of inanimate nature, animal and plant life, etc.) [113]. This definition of the subject of RD does not in any way contradict the one used in psycholinguistics, being its original “decoding” (since thought is a specific form of objective and generalized reflection in our consciousness of the surrounding reality). At the same time, this definition directly indicates what specifically needs to be adequately (fully, clearly and clearly) displayed in every speech statement. Accordingly, the main purpose of “speech” work is the formation of the ability to adequately reflect its subject matter in speech.

If the object of the RD is a thought, the formation and expression of which is aimed at speaking, then the means of existence, the formation and expression of this thought is a language or language system. Speech communication is carried out according to the laws of this language (Russian, German, English, etc.), which is a system of phonetic (graphic), lexical, grammatical and stylistic means and the corresponding rules for their use in the process of communication (speech communication). Features of speech activity, distinguishing it from other types of human activity, lie in the special nature of its tools, which are signs of the language. Language is a system of signs, functioning as a means of communication and an instrument of thought. [72]

However, the thought of the speaker or writer can be differently formed and formulated using the same language means, that is, the same vocabulary and grammar. Based on this, we can say that speech (as the psychophysiological process of generating and perceiving speech utterances) “is not a process of communication, speech is not and speaking, speech is a way to form and formulate thoughts in the process of speech activity” (92, p. 27). Proceeding from this, speech (as a psycho-physiological process), acting as a way of forming and articulating a thought through language, is an internal tool , an instrument for performing all types of speech activity.

An equally important element of the subject activity is its product . By definition, A.A. Leontiev, the product of speech activity is the mass of what is said and written (in the course of productive types of RD), as well as the totality of changes in the mental state of subjects of speech activity (during the receptive activity of listening and reading). In addition to this general definition of an RD product, other terms are used in psycholinguistics. From the point of view of the needs of the “speech work” technique, the term-concept “speech statement” is quite convenient (56, 130). Since this term is used in psychology of speech and psycholinguistics in several meanings, it should be noted here that in this case we mean a speech statement in a ready, finished form (as a real, “materially materialized” product of speech activity of speaking and writing). Accordingly, for receptive types of RD, the product will be the result of the analysis of the same speech. At the same time, it should be noted that the product of speech activity can be ideal, materially non-materialized, so, as a product of receptive types of RD, the inference that a person comes to in the process of speech perception (92, 93) comes out. It may be recognized as a product of activity, or it may not be recognized as such, being in this case, as it were, an intermediate decision taken by the subject of activity in the course of its implementation. If the product of the RD of speaking (letter) is an integral (expanded) statement (text), then the verbal actions that create this product are phrases (separate statements) as relatively complete communicative semantic formations.

As an element of the objective content of the PD, there can also be a result of an activity. The result of any human activity, as a rule, is expressed in the reaction to the product of this activity of other people and, accordingly, in what motivates them to a new (response) activity. In receptive types of RD, the result (hearing, reading) is an understanding of the semantic content of the speech utterance and the subsequent speaking (or other, non-speech activity). The result of the activity of speaking is the response (speech or non-speech) action of another participant of speech communication (regardless of whether this action has an external expression or not, it is carried out immediately or after some time). Based on this, the result of productive types of speech activity is the nature of reception (speech perception) by other people. It is in this understanding that the result of speaking activity (including in relation to one's own speech) should be used by teachers in the practice of correction and speech therapy work. Pedagogical “speech” work should be aimed at achieving just such an outcome. This methodological position is of particular importance for pedagogical work with children with developmental problems.

The methodical aspect of the above conceptual position on the dominant role of the subject of speech in its psychological content is as follows. The selection of the main component of the psychological content of speech activity of its subject - thought [73] - uniquely identifies the main subject of speech (speech therapy) work, the formation of the semantics (semantic side) of speech. The main task of teaching children to build speech statements is to form the ability to adequately (complete, accurate, correct from a linguistic point of view, otherwise - “codified”) display in speech of one or another fragment (fact, phenomenon, event) of the reality surrounding us. Full compliance of the linguistic form of expression of thought with the linguistic standard (language norms) adopted in this language is certainly very important, but still far from defining the process of speech communication; [74] even more so it cannot be a self-valuable, self-sufficient component of speech work . The main thing in any speech statement is its content, it should correspond to the goals of speech activity, which, in turn, becomes possible due to the adequate and accurate representation of its subject in speech.

The principle of "reliance on the semantics of speech" in speech therapy work was at one time actively promoted and defended by the well-known domestic expert BM. Grynshpun (1975, 1988); it is followed by leading domestic speech therapists, methodologists (TB Filicheva, GV Chirkina, R. I. Lalaeva, TV V. Tumanova, V. K. Vorobyova, and others). The practical implementation of this principle implies that all speech statements (from the simplest - one- and two-part phrases - to complex sentences; from individual statements to expanded), which children consistently master in the course of training, must "meet" the requirements of verbal communication, living speech communication primarily in the "semantic plane" - from the point of view of their content, "lexical content", to be adequate in meaning and informative in content, regardless of whether Newly or only “partially” they reflect the subject of speech. At the same time, emphasis is placed on the mapping of “predicative relations” (conveying connections and relations between objects of the surrounding reality) in speech. It is noteworthy that, according to the general methodological requirements for the quality of speech products of children with systemic speech disorders, for quite a long period of speech therapy work, the option of incomplete “language conformity” is allowed, there are some flaws in the phonetic and even lexico-grammatical design of speech statements provided that they do not have a significant impact on the semantics of speech, and consequently, on the possibility of correct semantic interpretation of the child’s speech by the listeners (61, 82, 230, etc.) .

In this regard, a fundamentally important point in the organization of speech work is a preliminary comprehensive analysis of the subject of speech, during which students should understand the main elements of the objective content of the fragment of surrounding reality displayed in speech. In the process of such analytical work, the most significant objects of the displayed objective situation, their most important characteristics, the subject of the action and the object to which it is directed, the relationship of “acting” persons of the event situation, etc. are highlighted and analyzed. For this purpose, the “system” specifies - guiding questions. (For example, when analyzing the content of a situational picture: “What is depicted in this picture?”, “What is this?”, “Who is it?”, “Who is depicted here?”, “What does (the name of the subject of the action)?”, “ What is riding on? ” , Etc.). Already after this, work is carried out on the selection of signs of the language (words and phrases) to indicate the selected elements of the subject content. Such a preparatory stage of pedagogical work, based on a differentiated perception of the subject of speech and understanding its subject content, should precede the actual speech work: an exercise in self-compiling speech statements (based on a given sample or a visual scheme-model of a sentence). Quite demonstratively, the corresponding “scheme” of speech work is presented in the description of the method of teaching composing phrase-statements from pictures in the general system of correctional and speech therapy work with children of preschool age who have a general underdevelopment of speech (NA. Nikashina, LF Spirova, 1968; T. B. Filicheva, TV Tumanova, 1999; V.P. Glukhov, 2004, etc.). [75]