Leontiev and language is speech activity. Speech activity in psycholinguistics: the theory of A. A. Leontiev. Other books on similar topics

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Leontiev A.A.

Language, speech, speech activity

Leontiev A.A. Language, speech, speech activity.- M.: Enlightenment, 1969. - 214 p. EBook. Psycholinguistics. neurolinguistics

Annotation (description)

In the proposed book, the author, an outstanding domestic linguist A.A. Leontiev (1936--2004), introduces readers to the theory of speech activity. The first chapter deals with the most important theoretical problems of a general nature - the object and subject linguistic science, the concept of speech activity, language functions. In the second chapter, the author tries to apply the above theoretical propositions to the solution of some specific scientific questions; considers the problems of language evolution and some questions of the genesis of speech communication in the light of the theory of activity. Chapter three is devoted to psycholinguistics as the science of speech activity; the fourth chapter analyzes various issues related to the teaching of language and grammar. The appendix contains two historical studies about the great scientists - the linguist I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay and the psychologist L.S. Vygotsky.
The book will be of interest to research scientists - linguists and psychologists, students and graduate students of relevant specialties.

Content (table of contents)

Preface to the second edition

From the author
Chapter I. Theory of speech activity
§ 1. Object and subject of linguistic science
§ 2. Language and speech
§ 3. The concept of speech activity
§ 4. Social functions and functional equivalents of language as a problem in the theory of speech activity
§ 5. Linguistic sign and the theory of speech activity
Chapter II. The study of speech activity and some problems of linguistics
§ 1. Diachrony, history, language development
§ 2. Some problems of language evolution and culture of speech
§ 3. On the theory of speech culture
§ 4. Some questions of the genesis of verbal communication in the light of the theory of activity
Chapter III. Psycholinguistics as a science of speech activity
§ 1. From the history of the emergence and development of psycholinguistics
§ 2. On the subject of psycholinguistics
§ 3. Psycholinguistic problems of phrase generation
§ 4. Psycholinguistic problems of semantics
Chapter IV. Speech activity and learning problems
§ 1. Speech activity and language learning
§ 2. On the speech situation and the principle of speech actions
§ 3. Essence and tasks of "school grammar"
§ 4. To the question of the place of psycholinguistic analysis in the problems of "school grammar" (parts of speech as a psycholinguistic problem)
Application. From the history of the study of speech activity in our country
J.A. Baudouin de Courtenay
L.S. Vygotsky

Leontiev A.N.

SPEECH ACTIVITY

Reader in psychology. / Ed. A.V. Petrovsky. -

M., 1977. - S. 223-228

If, following Marx, we see the essence of activity in the objectification of the specific properties and abilities of social man (“special human essential forces”) in “objects of nature”, then among the latter (Marx means here, to use his own expression, “the social reality of nature ”), in which these “essential forces” appear in an objectified form, language should also be included. Therefore, even if we take language in its objective existence as a social phenomenon, it is the unity of two sides. On the one hand, he is the product of a specific activity that is adequate to him; he is that in which this activity is objectified. It would be more accurate to say that in the language as a public domain, as an element of socio-historical experience, the speech skills of individual native speakers that develop individually (albeit under the influence of society) and are directly affected by the social environment are objectified.

On the other hand, it is the objective basis of the individual's speech activity.

The individual, firstly, encounters the language in its objective existence, assimilating the language; language for him acts as some external norm, to which he must adapt, and in a consistent approach to which (to the extent of the psychophysiological capabilities of the child at each stage) lies the meaning of the development of children's speech. The assimilation of a language is, to use the words of Marx, its transformation from an objective form into a form of activity and then the formation of the corresponding skills, the corresponding (speech) ability. This process is especially clear when mastering a non-native language. Secondly, he constantly focuses on the system and the norm of speech in the very process of speech, thereby controlling the comprehensibility, informativeness, expressiveness, and general communicativeness of his speech (this is the essence of the problem of speech culture).

The question arises of what kind of activity is adequate to the properties of language as an object, for what kind of activity it, according to Marx, is "material". Apparently, this, on the one hand, is an activity of cognition, i.e., first of all, such an activity that lies in the “disobjectification” of reality with the help of language (since we mean by cognition the expansion of the circle of knowledge and skills of the individual) or in solving, with the help of language, the cognitive tasks put forward by the course of social practice (since we mean the expansion of the fund of knowledge and skills of society as a whole On the other hand, it is the activity of communication, communicative activity.

Under the activity of communication should not be understood as a simple transfer from one individual to another of some information. Communication is not only and not so much the interaction of people in society as, first of all, the interaction of people as members of society, as “public individuals” (K. Marx). With regard to the primitive human collective, this idea can be formulated as follows: speech is not so much communication during labor as communication for labor. In a word, speech is not “attached” to the life and joint activities of society, a social group, but is one of the means that constitutes this activity. Speech is essentially not the work of an individual, not the work of an isolated native speaker: it is, first of all, the internal activity of society, carried out by it through individual native speakers, or, more precisely, with their help. Another question is that speech can be used by an individual, so to speak, in non-proper functions.

What is its main functional load, what is the social meaning of communication? In that it provides any other activity, with the immediate goal of either mastering this activity (“deobjectification”), or planning this activity, or coordinating it. This may be a direct correlation of the actions of the members of the production team, the development of common goals and common means for them. It is in this sense that T. Slama-Kazaku speaks of the “language of labor”. This may be the exchange of information (say, in the course of a scientific discussion) necessary for the theoretical activity of a scientist to be mediated by society, so that he is at the level of science and responds to the demands of society, etc...

Returning to the activity of cognition, it should be noted that this is not a passive perception of the external properties of objects and phenomena of reality, and not even just a “projection” onto them of individually significant functional characteristics learned in individual experience (this is approximately the case only in animals). This is a specific interaction of a person as a subject of knowledge and an object with the help of language. The specificity of this interaction, first of all, is that the language acts as a system of generally significant forms and methods of material-objective expression of ideal phenomena. Language provides an opportunity for a symbol or sign "to be the direct body of an ideal image of an external thing" ... In this sense, it serves as a kind of "bridge" connecting the experience of society, the human collective and activity, including the experience of an individual member of this collective, and represents an ideal-material phenomenon (ideal in its virtual aspect, as part of socio-historical experience, ideal-material in its actual aspect, that is, for each individual, as a way, an instrument of reflecting reality in an ideal form). It is this understanding that is clear from the well-known formula: “... Language There is practical ... real consciousness ... "" For Marx, virtual consciousness becomes real, "real" in language (speech reality; the word "language" in Marx, as in all classical philosophy of the 19th century, is non-terminological), acquires in him his "body".

As already mentioned in passing, the relationship between the activity of communication and the activity of cognition is an extremely important problem, essentially central not only to the philosophical and psychological, but also to the linguistic interpretation of language and speech activity. The main, most important distinguishing feature that separates speech activity from other, non-human or non-specifically human types of communication and at the same time encompasses all options for its implementation, will be what L. S. Vygotsky called "the unity of communication and generalization." Let us recall his statements on this subject: “06-schenis, not mediated by speech or any other system of signs or means of communication, as it is observed in the animal world, makes possible only communication of the most primitive type and in the most limited sizes.<...>

Communication based on reasonable understanding and on the intentional transmission of thoughts and experiences necessarily requires a certain system of means... In order to convey any experience or the content of consciousness to another person, there is no other way than to classify the content being transmitted to a certain class, to a known a group of phenomena, and this ... certainly requires generalization ... Thus, the highest forms of psychological communication inherent in a person are possible only due to the fact that a person, with the help of thinking, generally reflects reality.

The unity of communication and generalization is carried out in the sign. In essence, speech activity is a special case of sign activity, just as language is one of the sign systems; but it is important to emphasize that this is not just a sign system sm ^ enns, but a primary sign system. In the same way, speech activity is the main type of sign activity, logically and genetically preceding its other types.

Speech can occupy a different place in the system of activity. It can act as a tool for planning speech or non-speech actions, thus corresponding to the first phase of an intellectual act - the phase of orientation and planning. In these two cases, the nature of planning is completely different. In the first case, this is the programming of a speech utterance, apparently in a non-speech subjective code. In the second case, this is precisely the formulation of an action plan in speech form. These two functions in activity planning must not be confused...

Speech can act in the third phase of an intellectual act, precisely as an instrument of control, an instrument for comparing the result obtained with the intended goal. This usually happens in those cases when the act of activity is quite complex, for example, when it is entirely or almost entirely theoretical in nature (as is often the case, say, in the activity of a scientist). However, the main place occupied by speech in activity corresponds to the second phase of the intellectual act. This is speech as an action, speech as a correlate of the phase of the execution of the planned plan.

Although the title of this monograph, as well as the title of this chapter, contains the phrase "speech activity", this phrase, strictly speaking, is not terminological. Speech activity, in the psychological sense of the word, takes place only in those comparatively rare cases when the goal of the activity is the very generation of a speech utterance, when speech, so to speak, is valuable in itself. Obviously, these cases are

mainly related to the process of learning a second language. As for the actual communicative use of speech, in this case it almost always presupposes a certain non-speech purpose. The utterance usually appears for something. We are talking to achieve some result. In other words, speech is included as an integral part in the activity of a higher order. Let us borrow an example already used earlier. I ask my neighbor at the table to pass me a piece of bread. The act of activity is clearly not completed: my need will be satisfied only if the neighbor actually gives me bread. The same result, in principle, can also be achieved in a non-verbal way (I got up and took out a piece of bread myself). Thus, most often the term "speech activity" is incorrect. Speech is usually not a closed act of activity, but only a set of speech actions that have their own intermediate goal, subordinate to the goal of activity as such.

However, this collection is also organized in a certain way; it does not represent a linear chain of actions sequentially carried out on the basis of some a priori program or heuristic information. The organization of this totality, which we call here speech activity and which in a typical particular case is reduced to a separate speech action, as well as the organization of any action included as an integral part of an activity act, is in some essential features similar to the organization of the activity act as a whole insofar as we understand actions as “relatively independent processes subordinated to a conscious goal”. In any case, a speech action involves setting a goal (albeit subordinate to the overall goal of the activity), planning and implementing a plan (in this case, an internal program), and finally, comparing the goal and the result, that is, it is a kind of intellectual act /

Being a psychological action, a speech action must also possess all the characteristics inherent in any action ... Further, a speech action is determined by the general structure of activity and the place that it occupies in activity in general and in relation to other speech actions in particular ... Finally, speech action, like any action, is a kind of interaction between the general characteristics of the activity and the specific conditions and circumstances of its implementation. This interaction is already reflected in the very appearance of a speech action, but it is especially clear in connection with the fact that the same psychologically speaking speech action can be carried out on the basis of various speech operations.

What is the most general operational structure of speech action? It includes, firstly, the link of orientation. It is only necessary to say that in different types of speech actions this orienting basis can be different. Unfortunately, this question has not been studied at all. But it is obvious that, yes, in the same communicative situation (for example, if we describe some events occurring before our eyes), it is possible Various types orientation, which will be one if the child tells his mother about what he sees through the window, and completely different if the radio commentator describes what is happening on the football field. The nature of orientation, apparently, depends primarily on the place of speech action in the general system of activity. Skills related to the orienting basis of action can also be formed, like any other skills, and are the result of the process of internalization.

Further, the speech action includes the link of planning, or programming. As already noted, the program of speech action usually exists in a non-linguistic, or rather, non-linguistic (only formed on a linguistic basis) code. N. I. Zhinkin calls it “subject-pictorial” or “code of images and schemes”... In general, this code, as far as one can judge, is close to the codes used by thinking. Wed A. Einstein: “Words, or language, as they are written or pronounced, do not play any role in my mechanism of thinking. The psychic realities that serve as elements of thought are some signs or more or less clear images that can be "at will" reproduced and combined. Of course, there is some connection between these elements and the corresponding logical concepts ... Ordinary and generally accepted words are hardly selected until the next stage ... "<...!>

Further from the program, we move on to its implementation in the language code. Here we have a number of mechanisms that together provide such an implementation. These are the mechanisms of: a) choice of words, b) transition from the program to its implementation, c) grammatical forecasting, d) enumeration and comparison of syntactic variants, e) consolidation and reproduction of grammatical "obligations". In parallel with the implementation of the program, there is a motor programming of the statement, followed by its implementation.

Collection: Fundamentals of the theory of speech activity. M., "Nauka", 1974, p. 21-28.

In the 1950s-1960s. - the time of the formation of psycholinguistics as a science - key concept fatherly psychology was "activity". Psychological theory A. N. Leontiev’s activity was transposed by A. A. Leontiev into the field of linguistics and took shape as a “theory of speech activity”, which actually became a synonym for the term “psycholinguistics” in the fatherland. version of this science. According to A. N. Leontiev, activity is a specific form of human activity in the cognition and transformation of the surrounding reality. According to A. A. Leontiev, speech activity is a type of activity (along with labor, cognitive, play, etc.), psychologically it is organized like other types of activity, i.e., with one. stor., characterized by an objective motive, purposefulness, heuristic character, and on the other side., consists of several. successive phases (orientation, planning, implementation of the plan, control). Speech activity can act either as an independent activity. activities with a specific motivation, the components of which are speech actions (having a goal subordinate to the goal of the activity) and speech operations (varying in accordance with the conditions), or in the form of speech actions included in one or another non-speech activity. In essence, speech activity, according to A. A. Leontiev, refers to the very phenomenon of speech. Activity has a complex hierarchical structure, the so-called. "macrostructure", "layers" of which it is customary to arrange "from top to bottom": the upper level is special types activities (professional, social, etc.), then the level of actions follows, followed by the level of operations, and the lowest level of psychophysiol closes this “pyramid”. functions. In speech activity, by analogy, it is assumed that “above” is everything that is connected with planning and is controlled by consciousness (speech actions, speech acts), “below” are operations in the form of automatic speech skills, and at the very “bottom” a place is given to psychophysiol. the functions of speech, to which the “operational-technical” role is intended (the term of Yu. B. Gippenreiter). Everything conscious, planned, controlled, motivated, purposeful is recognized as the main one. The rest performs only service functions, subordinated to guiding conscious actions. By analogy with the dichotomy "theory of activity - the theory of speech activity", in the psycholinguistics of A. A. Leontiev, it is customary to separate speech and speech speech as a linguistic phenomenon. O. creates a communicative context in which speech acts are realized. In speech communication, aspects are distinguished that correspond to the goals and objectives of the speakers and are manifested in their speech: informative, perceptual, prescriptive (impact on the addressee), expressive (expression of emotions, assessments), interpersonal (regulation of relations between interlocutors), playful (appeal to the aesthetic perception, sense of humor, the imagination of the interlocutor), etc. These aspects often coexist, but can also be independent. forms of speech language - speech genres, "language games", decomp. not only in terms of goals, but also in terms of the distribution of the roles of interlocutors, their communicative interests, speech tactics, the preference for using certain syntactic structures, the principles for establishing the coherence of replicas, etc. (N. D. Arutyunova). The theory of speech activity (psycholinguistics) was originally focused on the study of that side of speech speech, which is associated with the perception and production of speech. In the future, the interests of psycholinguistics also spread towards the social and personal factors of speech O. Lit .: Leontiev AA Language, speech, speech activity. M., 1969; He is. Fundamentals of psycholinguistics. M., 1997; He is. Psychology of communication. M., 1997; Fundamentals of the theory of speech activity. M., 1974; Rumyantseva I.M. Psychology of speech and linguo-pedagogical psychology. M., 2004. I. M. Rumyantseva

Domestic psycholinguistics from the very beginning of its inception took shape and developed as theory of speech activity. Since the mid 1930s. within the framework of the psychological school of L.S. Vygotsky intensively developed an activity approach to the interpretation of the human mental sphere, which is presented in the most complete and complete form in the works of the Academy of Sciences. Leontiev (1974; 1977 and others). The very concept of activity, philosophically dating back to the ideas of G. Hegel, in the history of Russian psychology is associated with the names of I.M. Sechenov, P.P. Blonsky, S.L. Rubinstein. The psychological concept of A.N. Leontiev and his students (137, 8, 50, 98) directly relies on the approach outlined in the works of L.S. Vygotsky and S.L. Rubinstein. According to the concept of AN. Leontiev, “any objective activity meets a need, but always objectified in a motive; its main constituents are the goals and, accordingly, the actions corresponding to them, the means and methods of their implementation, and, finally, those psycho-physiological functions that implement the activity, which often constitute its natural prerequisites and impose certain restrictions on its course, are often rebuilt in it and even by it. are generated” (135, p. 9).

The structure of activities (according to AN. Leontiev) includes motive, purpose, actions, operations(as ways of doing things). In addition, it includes personal installations And results(products) of activity.

Different kinds Activities can be classified according to different criteria. The main one is the qualitative originality of activity - on this basis, one can divide labor, play, cognitive activity as independent activities. kinds activities. Another criterion is external(material), or interior, mental character activities. It's different forms activities. External and internal forms of activity are interconnected and pass each other in the processes interiorization and exteriorization(8, 50, 98, etc.). At the same time, an action of one type can be included as a forming element in the activity of another type: a theoretical action can be part of a practical, for example, labor activity, a labor action can be a part of a game activity, etc.

IN general psychology speech is defined as a form of communication, historically formed in the process of material transforming activity of people, mediated by language. Speech includes processes generations and perceptions(reception and analysis) messages for the purposes of communication or (in a particular case) for the purposes of regulation and control of one's own activity (51, 135, 148). Modern psychology considers speech as a universal means of communication, that is, as a complex and specifically organized form of conscious activity in which two subjects participate - the one who forms the speech statement and the one who perceives it (133, 243).

Most domestic psychologists and linguists consider speech as a speech activity, acting either in the form of whole act of activity(if it has a specific motivation that is not implemented by other types of activity), or in the form speech action, included in any non-speech activity (L.S. Rubinshtein (185); A.N. Leontiev (135); A.A. Leontiev (120, 133, etc.); N.I. Zhinkin (81); And .A. Winter (92, 94) and others.

According to AA. Leontiev, speech activity is a specific type of activity that is not directly correlated with "classical" types of activity, for example, with work or play. Speech activity “in the form of separate speech actions serves all types of activity, being part of the acts of labor, play, and cognitive activity. Speech activity as such takes place only when speech is valuable in itself, when the underlying motive that motivates it cannot be satisfied in any other way than speech” (133, p. 63).

According to the concept of the Moscow psycholinguistic school, speech memory a person is not a passive repository of information about the language. It's dynamic (moving) functional system. In addition, there is a constant interaction between the process of acquiring speech experience and its product. In other words, getting new information speech plan, a person not only processes it, but also rebuilds the entire system of his speech experience. This allows us to consider speech activity as a rather complex self-organizing system. The focus of psycholinguistics is precisely the organization and mechanisms of speech activity and human behavior, as well as the features of their formation and functioning.

"Psycholinguistics. Theory of speech activity"

Such an interpretation of human speech was first given in science by L.S. Vygotsky (1934). In his attempt to create a new approach to the definition of the human psyche, L.S. Vygotsky proceeded simultaneously from two basic propositions. First, from the position that the psyche is a function, a property of a person as a material being; secondly, from the fact that the human psyche is social, that is, its features must be sought in the history of human society. The unity of these two provisions of L.S. Vygotsky expressed in the doctrine of the nature of human activity mediated by social means. The human psyche is formed as a kind of unity of biological (physiological) prerequisites and social means. Only by assimilating these means, “appropriating them”, making them a part of his personality in his activity, does a person become himself. Only as a part of human activity, as an instrument of a mental subject - a person, these means, and above all language, manifest their essence (43, 44).

At the same time, the “word” (speech) arises, according to L.S. Vygotsky, in the process of social practice, and therefore, is a fact of objective reality, independent of the individual consciousness of a person (43, 46).

Speech activity is defined by the leading domestic specialist in psycholinguistics AA Leontiev as the process of using language to communicate during some other human activity(120, pp. 27–28; 133, etc.). According to A.A. Leontiev (which is not shared by all domestic psycholinguists), speech activity is some kind of abstraction that cannot be directly correlated with “classical” types of activity (cognitive, play, educational), which cannot be compared with labor or play. It - in the form of separate speech actions - serves all types of activities, being part of the acts of labor, play, and cognitive activity. Speech activity as such takes place only when speech is valuable in itself, when the underlying motive that motivates it cannot be satisfied in any other way than speech (133, p. 63). Speech actions and even individual speech operations can also be included in other types of activity, primarily in cognitive activity. Thus, speech(RD) is defined as one of the means of non-speech activity, speech (linguistic) process, the process of generation (production) and perception (understanding) of speech, which provides all other types of human activity. This applies to all forms of speech: (1) oral (sound), (2) written (reading and writing), and (3) kinetic (i.e. mimic-gestural) speech.

Distinctive features of speech activity (RD), according to A.A. Leontiev are the following.

The subject matter of the activity. It is determined by the fact that RD, according to the figurative expression of AN. Leontiev, proceeds "eye to eye with the outside world" (135, p. 8). In other words, “in activity, there occurs, as it were, the opening of the circle of internal mental processes towards the objective objective world, imperiously breaking into this circle, which does not close at all” (ibid., p. 10).

"Psycholinguistics. Theory of speech activity"

purposefulness, which means that any act of activity is characterized by a final, and any action - by an intermediate goal, the achievement of which, as a rule, is planned by the subject in advance.

Motivation RD. It is determined by the fact that in reality the act of any activity is prompted simultaneously by several motives merged into one.

Hierarchical ("vertical") organization of speech activity, including the hierarchical organization of its units. In the works of school psychologists L.S. Vygotsky's concept of the hierarchical organization of RD is interpreted in different ways. So, V.P. Zinchenko introduced into it the concept of a functional block (98); A.A. Leontiev distinguished between the concepts of macro-operations and micro-operations and introduced the concept of three types of systemic activities (120, 122); A.S. Asmolov introduced the concept of the levels of attitudes in activity and, together with V.A. Petrovsky developed the idea of ​​a "dynamic paradigm of activity" (8).

Phase("horizontal") organization of activities (119, 133).

The most complete and methodologically successful definition of speech activity was proposed by a well-known Russian psycholinguist, prof. I.A. Winter. “Speech activity is a process of active, purposeful, language-mediated and communication situation-conditioned interaction of people with each other (with each other). Speech activity may be included in another, broader activity, for example, social production (labor), cognitive. However, it can also be an independent activity; ... each type of RD has its own “professional embodiment”, for example, the RD of speaking determines the professional activity of a lecturer, writing - of a writer ... ”(92, pp. 28–29).

Characterizing speech activity, I.A. Winter indicates that the RD is active, purposeful, motivated, subject (content) process of issuing or receiving a thought formed and formulated through the language, aimed at satisfying the communicative and cognitive needs of a person in the process of communication (95).

It is clear that in these cases, RD is considered both as a proper communicative activity and as a professional activity of people. It acts as an independent, socially “fixed” human activity. Based on this provision, I.A. Zimnyaya makes a very important methodological conclusion, which is most directly related to the methodology of speech development (and, accordingly, to the theory and practice of speech therapy work): training of speech activity should be carried out from the position of forming it as an independent activity that has the fullness of its characteristics.

Any type of activity is aimed at achieving a certain goals, which determines the choice of action, the way of taking into account the conditions in which these actions are carried out. Any activity (as a rule) goes through the stage of orientation and development of an action plan, during the implementation of which control and correction mechanisms are used to compare the result obtained with the planned plan and, if necessary, make some changes.

"Psycholinguistics. Theory of speech activity"

It should be emphasized that any activity includes a stage (or phase) at which the goal is realized and a plan is developed to achieve it. “The entire course of activity must be subordinated to the achievement of the intended result ... and therefore requires planning and control of execution” (S.L. Rubinshtein, 185, p. 572).

A special problem of human psychology and psycholinguistics is the correlation between speech activity and communication activity (AA Leontiev, 132, 133). Communication is defined in psychology as an activity to solve problems of social communication. The activity of communication is general type specific human activity particular manifestations which are all types of human interaction with other people and objects of the surrounding reality.

The main and universal type of interaction between people in human society is speech, speech activity. Thus, the activity of communication and speech activity are considered in general psychology as general and particular, as a whole and a part. Speech in this case can be considered as a form and at the same time a way of communication activity. “Speech activity,” says AA. Leontiev, “is a specialized use of speech for communication, and in this sense it is a special case of the activity of communication” (133, p. 64).

However, it should be taken into account that speech activity is not limited to the framework of communication, communication in human society. It plays a huge role in a person's life; the formation and development of RD is closely connected with the formation and development of the entire personality of a person as a whole. A.A. Leontiev emphasizes that “speech actions and even individual speech operations can also be included in other types of activity, primarily in cognitive activity” (ibid., p. 64). As rightly pointed out by I.A. Winter (95), speech, speech activity is an integral part of personalities man, it is closely connected with his consciousness. Thus, RD is one of the most important conditions for the implementation of intellectual activity (cognition, awareness, analytical and synthetic activity, creativity).

It is important to note that the language, which acts as the main means of speech activity and is its integral part, according to L.S. Vygotsky, there is a unity of communication and generalizations(as a product of intellectual activity) - this is its essence. The correlation and interrelation of RD and communication activity can be reflected in the form of the following rather simple scheme:

From what has been said, it clearly follows that speech activity has two main options for its implementation (otherwise, implementation, implementation). The first is the process of verbal communication (verbal communication), which accounts for approximately two-thirds of the entire "stratum" of speech activity; the second is individual speech and thought activity, realized through inner speech.

"Psycholinguistics. Theory of speech activity"

There is a clip of books, a kind of gentleman's set, which for some reason it is considered necessary to mention in the bibliographic list at the end of any dissertation devoted to language, speech, mastery of a native or non-native language. It so happened that this book has long been included in this clip and remains in it to this day, although it was published more than 30 years ago (however, in a rather large circulation - 31 thousand copies).

When I, the author, think about why it happened, I can not find a clear answer. In essence, this book is a collection of previously published articles (and also includes several previously unpublished texts). Apparently, the reason is that it was the first mass publication on psycholinguistics, specifically targeted at a wide range of linguists and methodologists of the native (and foreign) language. At the same time, this book was perhaps the first generalizing work on what can be called "linguistics of speech" - on the theory of speech activity as part of general linguistics. Therefore, she attracted the reader's attention and, oddly enough, keeps it now.

Of the nineteen sections of the book, six were reprinted from the collective monograph "The Theory of Speech Activity (Problems of Psycholinguistics)" (M.: Nauka, 1968). Nine have been published in various journals and collections, and four are published in this book for the first time. Despite such heterogeneity, the book, according to the reviews of many of its readers, turned out to be quite coherent.

The book as a whole and its individual parts attracted attention abroad. Already two years after the release of the Russian edition, it was completely published in Germany. Chapters from it were also translated into Italian and published in the GDR. The book and chapters from it were the subject of a long discussion in Western, primarily German, linguistics, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, and linguodidactics.

Of course, the author has come a long way since the book was first published. I will not list all my books that came out after her - I will name only the last four. This is the third edition of "Psychology of Communication" (1999), the book "Language and speech activity in general and pedagogical psychology. Selected psychological works" in the series "Psychologists of the Fatherland" (2001), the monograph "Active mind. Activity, sign, personality" (2001 ) and the third edition of Fundamentals of Psycholinguistics (2003). By the way, a complete list of my publications up to 2001 is published in the "Active Mind".

I would like to hope that "Language, Speech, Speech Activity" may be of interest even now, for a new generation of readers.

A.A.Leontiev

Outstanding domestic linguist, psychologist, teacher. Recognized founder of psycholinguistics in the USSR and Russia. Professor of the Department of Personality Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, Moscow state university them. M. V. Lomonosov. Doctor of Philology (1968), Doctor of Psychology (1975), full member of the Russian Academy of Education (1992), rector of the Institute of Languages ​​and Cultures. L.N. Tolstoy (1994). Author of hundreds of scientific publications on psychology, linguistics, ethnography, semiotics, criminology, mass communication and pedagogy, including more than 30 scientific and popular science books. The organizer of a series of applied research on the problem of communication in the field of lectures, advertising, cinema, etc. The results of his research are widely used in language teaching methods, in criminalistics and in other areas of practical activity.