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A Study of the Form and Content of Private Speech Produced by Iranian Adult EFL Learners

2013; Academy Publication; Volume: 3; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.4304/tpls.3.5.836-845

2053-0692

Afsaneh Khorshidi, Shirin Abadikhah,

Multilingual Education and Policy

This article examines the speech of Persian learners of English while working collaboratively on a picture description task.The main purpose of the study was to analyze the content and form of private speech identified in the interactions of 12 adult EFL learners at two beginner and advanced levels of proficiency.The learners' interactions were tape-recorded during the completion of a picture description task.The results indicated that whisper and loud forms of private speech were used by both advanced and beginner learners, and question/answer and repetition were the two most frequent contents of private speech identified in the transcripts of both groups.Extracts obtained from the interactions of the learners suggest that private speech helped them manage their speech, structure their sentences and get control over the task.Index Terms-sociocultural theory, form and content of private speech I. INTRODUCTIONMany researchers agree that private speech is used as a tool to solve problems and control behavior (Winsler, Diaz and Montero, 1997;Winsler et al. 2007).Several studies have indicated that some children are more attentive and perform better than their less talkative agemates when they are involved in challenging tasks (Berk and Spuhl, 1995;Winsler, Diaz and Montero, 1997).For instance, Winsler et al. (2007) found that children producing more private speech had less behavior problems and had better social skills.Fernyhough and Fradley (2005) also reported that private speech is more strongly related to future than concurrent task performance.Saville-Troike"s (l988) data, collected from children with Chinese, Korean and Japanese L1 backgrounds, showed that most of these children produced private speech in whisper, employing different strategies such as repetition, producing new language forms and rehearsal.It was also found that the quantity and quality of private speech are influenced by the difficulty of the learning task as well as children"s level of cognitive development and their social orientation and learning style.Broner and Tarone (2001) also provided evidence of private speech in the form of language play.They examined the relationship between two forms of language play (i.e., ludic language play and language play as rehearsal) in private speech and second language acquisition (SLA) in the interaction of the learners.They found that language play as rehearsal has the function of internalization and ludic language play has an amusement function.The data revealed that with increase in proficiency, ludic language play would increase; however, language play for rehearsal would decrease.Most of the studies revealed that private speech has a positive impact on performing the task and having better social skills in children.Private speech is not evident just in children acquiring L1; some SLA studies have supported its existence in adult learners.Research has shown that adult learners revert back to private speech when they are faced with challenging cognitive tasks.For example, Ahmed (1994a) summarized the findings of John-Steiner"s (1992) study and reported that adult L2 learners also use private speech when they are involved in performing difficult and unfamiliar tasks.Also, an earlier study by Frawley and Lantolf (1985 cited in McCafferty, 1994a) confirmed the existence of private speech among adult learners.Although the study of private speech in children has received considerable attention, little is known about the adult learners" use of private speech in EFL context.The present study is an attempt to examine the form and content of private speech used by Iranian adult EFL learners during a picture description task. II. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY A. Theoretical FrameworkRecently, many SLA studies have been inspired by the sociocultural theory of mind.From sociocultural perspective, all higher mental functions of human occur through interaction in society (Lantolf and Thorne, 2006); in other words, they happen in cultural context.The primacy of social interaction in human development was originally emphasized by Vygotsky (1978, p.57) who claimed that "every function in the child"s cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level and later, on the individual level; first, between people (interpsychological) and then inside the child