Speech activity: structure, types and forms

Speech activity is a kind of activity that has a social orientation. In its course, the formation and use of the utterance is created to achieve a specific goal (communication, influence, impact, etc.). The definition of speech activity was given by many scientists and linguists. So, one of the examples is the psychologist LS Vygotsky, who characterizes it as a process of materializing thought, that is, its conversion into a verbal form.

In general, the structure of speech activity is as follows: it consists of speech acts based on the preparation and implementation of an utterance having a different volume and meaning.

However, psychologists note that this structure consists of four levels. The first of these is the interaction of needs and desires, as well as motives that should influence the future statement. That is, the tentative, the first phase is aimed at determining the conditions for conducting speech activity, as well as highlighting its subject and using the necessary means. The second level - planning - involves choosing and organizing the means and the way it is carried out. As for the third phase, which is called realizing, it can be externally pronounced or not expressed. At the fourth level, verbal activity is controlled, and the ways of carrying out this operation are carried out in different ways. For example, during a hearing, the emphasis is on the goal and setting of a certain kind of it. As for speaking, self-control is carried out throughout the whole process.

If we consider these structural elements from the point of view of linguistics, the scheme of the speech act developed by RO Yakobson has become most widespread. It consists of four main elements:

1. The addressee (the one who speaks).

2. The addressee (the one who listens).

3. Context (the situation in which the statement is made - the official setting, the lesson, the conversation of friends, etc.).

4. The essence of transmitted information.

Speech activity can be of two kinds: external and internal, and these two parts exist in constant dependence and oneness. So, as for the internal form, it controls the organization, planning and programming of all speech activity, and the executive functions are the psychic functions that are responsible for its realization (emotions, needs, thinking, memory). The internal form is characterized by four stages: motivation, the formation of the idea, its implementation, and also the comparison of the design with the resulting implementation.

Speech activity, as already noted, is bipolar, that is, its realization becomes possible in the presence of two subjects. In the case of a one-sided form of the expression, when only the addressee or addressee exists, the process will not take place. If we consider this situation from the point of view of psycholinguistics, then this is possible if the person talks to himself.

Note that the second subject is the addressee, is no less active than the first. Psychologists believe that his speech activity is called the process of "inner mental activity".

In general, this process is considered to be intellectual, because it is conditioned by its nature and subject. Thus, the role of the latter is a mental reflection in the consciousness of the personality of an element of the surrounding being. Also among the characteristic features of this type of activity, the specificity of its instruments is singled out, in the role of which linguistic units act .

Thus, it becomes clear that speech activity is the main means of communication between individuals. It is simultaneously defined as the main means of communication.