Introduction published In: Solitude Speech across Languages and Cultures
Edited by Mitsuko Narita Izutsu and Katsunobu Izutsu
[International Journal of Language and Culture 12:1] 2025
► pp. 1–19
Introduction
Solitude speech across languages and cultures
Published online: 5 February 2026
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijolc.00067.izu
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijolc.00067.izu
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Main issues to be addressed in the linguistic research on solitude speech
- 2.1Dialogicity
- 2.2Construals of the self
- 3.Types of solitude speech
- 3.1Classifications of private speech (self-talk, soliloquy) in previous studies
- 3.2Categories of solitude speech
- 4.Outline of contributions
- Notes
References
References (70)
Ameka, F. K. (1992). Interjections:
The universal yet neglected part of speech. Journal of
Pragmatics, 181, 101–118.
Bakhtin, M. ([1929]
1984). Problems of Dostoevsky’s poetics (ed. & trans.
by C. Emerson). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
(1983). The
dialogic imagination: Four essays (ed. by M. Holquist & trans.
by C. Emerson). Austin: University of Texas Press.
Begley, K. (2012). Attentional
focus and self-talk. Sports Psychology Today (posted
on December 15,
2012). Retrieved from [URL] (accessed March 9, 2024).
Berk, L. E. (2018). The
role of make-believe play in development of self-regulation. In R. E. Tremblay, M. Boivin, & R. DeV. Peters (Eds.), A. Pyle (Topic
Ed.), Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development. Retrieved
from [URL] (accessed March 9, 2024).
Berk, L. E., & Garvin, R. A. (1984). Development
of private speech among low-income Appalachian children. Developmental
Psychology, 20(2), 271–286.
Dennett, D. C. (1996). Kinds
of minds: Towards an undertaking of consciousness. New York: Basic Books.
Diaz, R. M. (1986). Issues
in the empirical study of private speech: A response to Frawley and Lantolf’s
commentary. Developmental
Psychology, 22(5), 709–711.
(1992). Methodological
concerns in the study of private speech. In R. M. Diaz & L. E. Berk (Eds.), Private
speech: From social interaction to
self-regulation (pp. 181–198). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Du Bois, J. W. (2009). Interior
dialogues: The co-voicing of ritual in solitude. In E. B. Basso & G. Senft (Eds.), Ritual
communication (pp. 317–372). Oxford: Berg.
(2011). Co-opting
intersubjectivity: Dialogic rhetoric of the self. In C. Meyer & F. Girke (Eds.), The
rhetorical emergence of
culture (pp. 52–83). Oxford: Berghahn.
Fernyhough, C. (2004). Alien
voices and inner dialogue: Towards a developmental account of auditory verbal
hallucinations. New Ideas in
Psychology, 22(1), 49–68.
(2009). Dialogic
thinking. In A. Winsler, C. Fernyhough, & I. Montero (Eds.), Private
speech: Executive functioning, and the development of verbal
self-regulation (pp. 42–52). Cambridge: CUP.
Frauenglass, M. H., & Diaz, R. M. (1985). Self-regulatory
functions of children’s private speech: A critical analysis of recent challenges to Vygotsky’s
theory. Developmental
Psychology, 21(2), 357–364.
Fuson, K. C. (1978). The
development of self-regulating aspects of speech: A review. In G. Zivin (Ed.), The
development of self-regulation through private
speech (pp. 135–217). New York: Wiley.
Gregory, D., & Langland-Hassan, P. (2023). Inner
Speech. In E. N. Zalta & U. Nodelman (Eds.), The
Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Winter 2023 Edition). Retrieved
from [URL] (accessed March 13, 2024).
Hasegawa, Y. (2005). A
study of soliloquy in Japanese. Proceedings of the 31st Annual Meeting of the Berkeley
Linguistics Society, 145–156.
(2006). Embedded
soliloquy and affective stances in Japanese. In S. Suzuki (Ed.), Emotive
communication in
Japanese (pp. 209–229). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
(2010a). Soliloquy
in Japanese and English. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
(2011). Soliloquy
for linguistic investigation. Studies in
Language 35(1), 1–40.
Hayasaka, T. (2020). Nihonjin-no
“shuudan ishiki,” “doochoo atsuryoku”-niwa yoi men-mo warui men-mo aru. Newsweek, Japanese
edition (August 7). Retrieved from [URL] (accessed March 26, 2024).
Hirose, Y. (1995) Direct
and indirect speech as quotations of public and private
expression. Lingua, 95(4), 223–238.
(1997). Hito-o
arawasu kotoba-to shoooo. In Y. Hirose & N. Kaga (Eds.), Shiji-to
shoooo-to
hitei (pp. 2–89). Tokyo: Kenkyusha.
(2000) Public
and private self as two aspects of the speaker: A contrastive study of Japanese and
English. Journal of
Pragmatics, 32(11), 1623–1656.
Holmberg, A. (2010). Referring
to yourself in self-talk. In C. J. W. Zwart & M. de Vries (Eds.), Structure
preserved: Studies in syntax for Jan
Koster (pp. 185–192). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Hyams, N. (2008). Reflections
on Motherese. In T. Sano, M. Endo, M. Isobe, K. Otaki, K. Sugisaki, & T. Suzuki (Eds.), Enterprise
in the cognitive science of language: Festshrift in honor of Yukio
Otsu (pp. 1–12). Tokyo: Hituzi Syobo.
Izutsu, M. N., & Izutsu, K. (2021). On
and off the common ground: Japanese final particles as (un)grounding devices. Lingua
Posnaniensis, 63(2), 7–32.
Izutsu, M. N., Kim, Y.-T., & Izutsu, K. (2022). Response
cries or response statements?: A cross-linguistic analysis of interjectional expressions in Japanese and
English. Contrastive
Pragmatics, 3(2), 194–221.
Kohlberg, L., Yaeger, J., & Hjertholm, E. (1968). Private
speech: Four studies and a review of theories. Child
Development, 39(3), 691–736.
Kompa, N. A. (2023). Inner
speech and ‘pure’ thought-Do we think in language? Review of Philosophy and
Psychology. Retrieved from [URL] (accessed March 13, 2024).
Kühn, S., Fernyhough, C., Alderson-Day, B., & Hurlburt, R. T. (2014). Inner
experience in the scanner: can high fidelity apprehensions of inner experience be integrated with
fMRI? Frontiers in
Psychology, 51. Retrieved from [URL] (accessed February 8, 2019).
Levinson, S. C. (1988). Putting
linguistics on a proper footing: Explorations in Goffman’s concepts of
participation. In P. Drew & A. Wootton (Eds.), Erving
Goffman: Exploring the interaction
order (pp. 161–227). Oxford: Polity Press.
Lillard, A. S., Lerner, M. D., Hopkins, E. J., Dore, R. A., Smith, E. D., & Palmquist, C. M. (2013). The
impact of pretend play on children’s development: A review of the evidence. Psychological
Bulletin, 139(1), 1–34.
Linell, P. (2009). Rethinking
language, mind, and world dialogically: Interactional and contextual theories of human
sense-making. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.
Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture
and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychological
Review, 981, 224–253.
Matsumoto, Y. (1988). Reexamination
of the universality of face: Politeness phenomena in Japanese. Journal of
Pragmatics, 121, 403–426.
Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind,
self, and society from the standpoint of a social
behaviorist. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Montero, I., & Huertas, J. A. (1999). The
motivational function of private speech in young children. Poster presented at
the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research
Association (Montreal, Quebec, Canada, April 19–23,
1999).
O’Connell, D. C., & Kowal, S. (2008). Communicating
with one another: Toward a psychology of spontaneous spoken discourse. New York: Springer.
Pascual, E. (2002). Imaginary
trialogues: Conceptual blending and fictive interaction in criminal
courts. Utrecht: LOT Publications.
(2006). Fictive
interaction within the sentence: A communicative type of fictivity in grammar. Cognitive
Linguistics, 17(2), 245–267.
(2008a). Fictive
interaction blends in everyday life and courtroom settings. In A. Hougaard & T. Oakley (Eds.), Mental
spaces in discourse and
interaction (pp. 79–108). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
(2008b). Text
for context, trial for trialogue: An ethnographic study of a fictive interaction blend. Annual
Review of Cognitive
Linguistics, 61, 50–82.
(2014). Fictive
interaction: The conversation frame in thought, language, and
discourse. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Pascual, E., & Sandler, S. (Eds.). (2016). The
conversation frame: Forms and functions of fictive
interaction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Pavlenko, A. (2014). The
bilingual mind: And what it tells us about language and
thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Peirce, C. S. (1935). Collected
papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, Vol. VI: Scientific metaphysics (ed. by C. Hartshorne & P. Weiss). Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Piaget, J. ([1923]
1959). Language and thought of the child (Third
edition. trans. by M. & R. Gabain). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.
Plato ([n.d.] 1892). The dialogues of
Plato, Vol. 41. (trans. into English with Analyses and
Introductions by Benjamin Jowett, Third
edition revised and corrected). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ramirez, J. D. (1992). The functional differentiation
between social and private speech: A dialogic approach. In R. M. Diaz & L. E. Berk (Eds.), Private
speech: From social interaction to
self-regulation (pp. 199–214). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Rhee, S., & Koo, H. J. (2017). Audience-blind
sentence-enders in Korean: A discourse-pragmatic perspective. Journal of
Pragmatics, 1201, 101–121.
Sacks, H., Schegloff, E. A., & Jefferson, G. (1974). A
simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for
conversation. Language, 50(4), 696–735.
Selting, M., & Couper-Kuhlen, E. (Eds.). 2001. Studies
in interactional linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Suzuki, T. (1978). Words
in context: A Japanese perspective on language and
culture. Tokyo: Kodansha International.
Triandis, H. C. (1989). The
self and social behaviors in differing cultural contexts. Psychological
Review, 961, 506–520.
Van Raalte, J. L., Vincent, A., & Brewer, B. W. (2016). Self-talk:
Review and sport-specific model. Psychology of Sport and
Exercise, 221, 139–148.
Van Raalte, J. L., & Vincent, A. (2017). Self-talk
in sport and performance. In O. Braddick (Ed.), Oxford
Research Encyclopedia of Psychology.
Vygotsky, L. ([1934]
1986). Thought and language (trans. by E. Hanfmann & G. Vakar, rev.
& ed. by A. Kozulin). Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
Weigand, E. (2009). Language
as dialogue: From rules to principles of
probability. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
