Functions of Ego-centric Speech Elements in Socialized Speech Production among Adults

Introduction to theory. Carrying out researches on child language, Jean Piaget has divided the functions of the child’s speech into ego-centric and the socialized speech (Piaget, 2002: 9). According to him, ego-centric speech may be divided into three categories – 1) repetition or echolalia, 2) monologue and 3) dual or collective monologue (ibid., 9-10). Piaget’s division of socialized speech is the following: 4) adapted information, 5) criticism, 6) commands, requests and threats, 7) questions, 8) answers. According to J. Piaget’s theory, the development of a child’s speech evolves from ego-centric or autistic, or undirected speech to socialized, directed, intelligent thought characteristic for an adult (ibid., 43).
J. Piaget’s opponent Lev Vygotsky has turned down J. Piaget’s theory that the elements of autistic thought disappear entirely with the development of speech from childhood to adulthood. As L. Vygotsky sustains, egocentric speech turns into inner speech instead, when “it serves mental orientation, conscious understanding; it helps in overcoming difficulties; it is speech for oneself, intimately and usefully connected with the child’s thinking” (Vygotsky, 1962: 228). …