Functions of egocentric speech according to Vygotsky. Egocentric speech: structure, functions and development. The problem of the relationship between thinking and speech

egocentric speech the child is very detailed and often considered in psychology. One of the first to consider this topic was a Swiss psychologist who conducted a series of experiments in this area. Somewhat later, the concept of J. Piaget was criticized by L.S. , who proposed some changes in the theory of egocentric speech.

Before proceeding to the consideration of egocentric speech, it is necessary to understand the differences between the concepts of "speech" and "egocentric speech".

Speech is communication, influence, communication through language, it is a form of existence of consciousness. In speech, external as well as internal semantic aspects are presented. Each communication partner extracts their content from signals and signs.

egocentric speech- one of the external manifestations of the egocentric positions of the child. Speech addressed to oneself, regulating and controlling the practical activity of the child. It is observed at the age of three to five years, and by the end it practically disappears. It manifests itself in the fact that children speak aloud, as if not addressing anyone, in particular, they ask questions, do not receive an answer to them and are not at all worried about this.

Egocentrism (from Latin "ego") is a term denoting the cognitive position of a person, characterized by fixation on one's own goals, aspirations, experiences and lack of focus on external influences and experiences of other people.

In his book Speech and Thinking of the Child, J. Piaget tried to resolve the question: “What needs does the child seek to satisfy when he speaks?”. Speech, even among adults, exists not only for the function of communicating thought. With the help of research conducted in the morning classes "House of Babies" under the guidance of J.-J. Rousseau and J. Piaget managed to classify children's speech into functional categories. For a month, several people carefully wrote down (with context) everything that this or that child said. After processing the received material, J. Piaget divided the children's conversations into two large groups:
- egocentric
- socialized.

When pronouncing phrases related to the egocentric type of speech, the child is not interested in who he is speaking to and whether they are listening to him. Piaget writes: “This speech is egocentric primarily because the child speaks only about himself, precisely because he does not try to take the point of view of the interlocutor. The interlocutor for him is "the first person he meets." Only visible interest is important to the child, although he obviously has the illusion that he is heard and understood. The child does not feel the desire to influence the interlocutor, really tell him something - this is a conversation like those that are conducted in some living rooms, where everyone talks about himself and no one listens to anyone. Further, J. Piaget divides egocentric speech into 3 categories:
- repetition,
- monologue,
- monologue together.

Repetition (echolalia). It is only a matter of repeating words and syllables. The child repeats them for the pleasure of speaking, without thinking of addressing anyone or even of uttering meaningful words. This is one of the last remnants of infantile babble, which does not contain any social orientation. Indeed, in the first years of life, the child likes to repeat the words he hears, imitate syllables and sounds even when they do not make sense. Zh. notes that the functions of this phenomenon cannot be determined in one formula, because this mental state constitutes "a streak of the child's activity - a streak that can be found at any age with only a different content, but always identical in its functions." J. Piaget finds in this phenomenon a resemblance to a game, the child repeats words for the sake of pleasure and entertainment.

The child talks to himself as if he were thinking aloud. He doesn't address anyone. The word for the child is closer to the action, it is associated with it.

The author highlights two important consequences from this statement, which are important for understanding the child's monologues:
- The child, acting, must speak (even when he is alone) and accompany his movements and games with cries and words.
- If a child speaks in order to accompany his action with words, he can modify this attitude to action and use words to pronounce something without which the action itself could not be carried out.

As a rule, the purpose of a monologue is to accompany an action or replace the desired action with its pronunciation.

A monologue for two or a collective monologue. Zh. writes about this type of egocentric speech in this way: “The internal contradiction of this name can be clearly seen in children's conversations (what children just don’t talk about), during which each speaker attaches the other to his thought or action (involves in the situation) at the moment, but does not care about actually being heard or understood. The position of the interlocutor is never taken into account, the interlocutor is, as it were, the causative agent of the monologue. The author considers the collective monologue the most social form of all the available egocentric varieties of language. When using a monologue of this type, the child speaks not only for himself, but also for others. But children do not listen to such monologues, since the collective monologue is directed at itself: "the child only thinks aloud about his action and does not want to tell anyone anything at all."

The types of egocentric speech of the child identified by J. Piaget are used by children depending on the situation and their needs. According to the author, speech for a child of two to seven years is not so much a means of communication, as it is for adults, but an auxiliary, imitative action. In the view of the psychologist, a preschool child is something "closed and turned on itself." This type of behavior is due to the peculiarities of the thinking of a small child.

And so, based on a number of experiments, as well as on the fact of egocentric speech, J. Piaget comes to the conclusion that the child’s thought is egocentric, that is, the child thinks for himself, not caring either about being understood or about understanding the other's point of view.

Extraverbal autistic >>> Egocentric speech and egocentric thinking >>> Socialized speech and logical thinking

Later, many researchers conducted similar experiments and refuted this statement by J. Piaget. So, the Soviet psychologist L.S. Vygotsky criticized Piaget's statement about the functional uselessness of a child's egocentric speech.

He conducts a number of his own clinical studies, he studied the speech of children in conditions similar to those in which J. Piaget made his experiments. In the experimental procedures, he used a number of factors that impede the child's activity. So, for example, the colors of pencils necessary for drawing were taken from the child and they looked at how the child uses speech, trying to get out of a difficult situation. Thanks to a number of similar experiments, L.S. Vygotsky created a number of theses about the features of egocentric speech and thinking in children, in contrast to the initial statements of J. Piaget:
1. The coefficient of egocentric children's speech almost doubles in a situation that impedes the child's activity: “Difficulty or disruption of smoothly running activities is one of the main factors causing egocentric speech.
2. “Egocentric speech, in addition to being a purely expressive function and the function of discharge, besides the fact that it simply accompanies children's activity, very easily becomes a means of thinking in the proper sense, i.e. begins to perform the function of forming a plan for resolving a problem that arises in behavior.
3. The main function of egocentric speech is the transition in the process of speech development from external to internal. Egocentric speech is similar to the inner speech of an adult. They also have a similar structure: an abbreviated train of thought, figurative thinking, the impossibility of understanding by others without additional context, etc.
4. At school age, egocentric speech does not disappear, as J. Piaget claims, but passes into inner speech.
5. The function of egocentric speech is not a direct reflection of the egocentrism of a child's thought, but shows that egocentric speech very early, under appropriate conditions, becomes a means of a child's realistic thinking. Therefore, there can be no connection between egocentric speech and egocentric thinking.

He proved that in addition to the functions indicated, egocentric speech very easily becomes a means of thinking in the proper sense, i.e. begins to perform the function of forming a plan for resolving the problem.

The phenomenon of a child's egocentric speech has been thoroughly and quite often discussed in psychology. If we talk about speech in general, then it contains the external, internal and sensual aspects of human consciousness. Therefore, in order to understand what the child thinks about, what he is like inside, you should pay attention to his speech.

Some parents begin to worry when their baby utters words that are not related in meaning, as if mindlessly repeating everything that he heard from someone. It can be uncomfortable when you try to figure out why he said this or that word, and the child is simply not able to explain it. Or when a child speaks with an interlocutor, as if with a wall, in other words, practically to nowhere and not expecting either an answer, much less understanding. Parents may have thoughts about the development of a mental disorder in their baby and about the dangers that such a form of speech hides.

What is egocentric speech really? And is it worth worrying if you notice its signs in your child?

What is egocentric speech?

One of the first scientists who devoted a lot of time to the study of children's egocentric speech, and also discovered this concept itself, was Jean Piaget, a psychologist from Switzerland. He developed his own theory in this area and conducted a number of experiments involving young children.

According to his conclusions, one of the obvious external manifestations of egocentric positions in a child's thinking is precisely egocentric speech. The age at which it is most often observed is from three to five years. Later, according to Piaget, this phenomenon almost completely disappears.

How is this behavior different from normal baby talk? Egocentric speech is, in psychology, a conversation directed towards oneself. It manifests itself in children when they speak aloud without addressing anyone, ask themselves questions and do not worry at all that they do not receive an answer to them.

Egocentrism itself is defined in psychology as a focus on personal aspirations, goals, experiences, a lack of focus on the experiences of other people and any external influences. However, if your baby has this phenomenon, you should not panic. Much will become clearer and will turn out to be not terrible at all with a deeper consideration of the research of psychologists in this area.

Developments and conclusions of Jean Piaget

Jean Piaget in his book "Speech and Thinking of the Child" tried to reveal the answer to the question of what needs the child is trying to satisfy by talking to himself. In the course of his research, he came to several interesting conclusions, but one of his mistakes was the assertion that in order to fully understand the way a child thinks, it is enough to analyze only his speech, since words directly reflect actions. Later, other psychologists refuted such an incorrect dogma, and the phenomenon of egocentric language in children's communication became more understandable.

When Piaget investigated this issue, he argued that speech in children, as well as in adults, exists not only to communicate thoughts, but also has other functions. In the course of research and experiments carried out in the "House of Babies", J.-J. Rousseau and J. Piaget managed to determine the functional categories of children's speech. For a month, careful and detailed notes were kept of what each child spoke about. After careful processing of the collected material, psychologists identified two main groups of children's speech: egocentric speech and socialized speech.

What can this phenomenon tell about?

Egocentric speech is manifested in the fact that, when speaking, the child is not at all interested in who is listening to him and whether anyone is listening to him at all. What makes this form of language egocentric is, first of all, a conversation only about oneself, when the child does not even try to understand the point of view of his interlocutor. He needs only a visible interest, although the child most likely has the illusion that he is understood and heard. He also does not try with his speech to have any effect on the interlocutor, the conversation is conducted solely for himself.

Types of egocentric speech

It is also interesting that, as Piaget defined, egocentric speech is also divided into several categories, each of which has different features:

1. Repetition of words.
2. Monologue.
3. "Monologue for two".

The selected types of egocentric children's language are used by babies in accordance with a specific situation and their momentary needs.

What is repetition?

Repetition (echolalia) involves the almost thoughtless repetition of words or syllables. The child does this for the pleasure of speech, he does not quite comprehend the words and does not address anyone with something specific. This phenomenon is the remnants of infantile babble and does not contain the slightest social orientation. In the first few years of life, the child likes to repeat the words he hears, imitate sounds and syllables, often without putting any special meaning into it. Piaget believes that this type of speech has a certain similarity with the game, because the child repeats sounds or words for fun.

What is a monologue?

Monologue as egocentric speech is a conversation of a child with himself, similar to loud thoughts aloud. This one is not directed to the interlocutor. In such a situation, the word for the child is associated with action. The author highlights the following consequences from this, which are important for correctly understanding the child's monologues:

• acting, the child (even alone with himself) must speak and accompany games and various movements with words and cries;
• accompanying a certain action with words, the baby can modify the attitude to the action itself or say something without which it could not be carried out.

What is a monologue for two?

The "monologue for two", also known as the collective monologue, is also described in some detail in the writings of Piaget. The author writes that the name of this form, which is taken by egocentric children's speech, may seem somewhat contradictory, because how can a monologue be conducted in a dialogue with an interlocutor? However, this phenomenon is often traced in the conversations of children. It manifests itself in the fact that during the conversation, each child attaches the other to his action or thought, without striving to be truly heard and understood. Such a child never takes into account the opinion of the interlocutor; for him, the opponent is a kind of activator of the monologue.

Piaget calls the collective monologue the most social form of egocentric varieties of speech. After all, using this type of language, the child speaks not only for himself, but also for others. But at the same time, children do not listen to such monologues, because they are ultimately addressed to themselves - the baby thinks aloud about his actions and does not set himself the goal of conveying any thoughts to the interlocutor.

Contradictory opinion of a psychologist

According to J. Piaget, speech for a small child, unlike an adult, is not so much an instrument of communication as an auxiliary and imitative action. From his point of view, a child in the first years of life is a self-contained creature. Piaget, based on the very fact that the child’s egocentric speech takes place, as well as on a number of experiments, comes to the following conclusion: the baby’s thinking is egocentric, which means that he thinks only for himself, not wanting to be understood, and not striving to understand the mindset of the interlocutor.

Research and conclusions of Lev Vygotsky

Later, when conducting similar experiments, many researchers refuted Piaget's conclusion presented above. For example, a Soviet scientist and psychologist criticized the opinion of a Swiss about the functional meaninglessness of a child's egocentric speech. In the course of his own experiments, similar to those carried out by Jean Piaget, he came to conclusions that, to a certain extent, contradicted the original statements of the Swiss psychologist.

A new look at the phenomenon of egocentric speech

Among the facts derived by Vygotsky about the phenomenon of children's egocentrism, the following can be taken into account:

1. Factors that impede certain activities of the child (for example, pencils of a certain color were taken from him while drawing) provoke egocentric speech. Its volume in such situations almost doubles.
2. In addition to the discharge function, the purely expressive function, and the fact that the child's egocentric speech often simply accompanies games or other types of children's activities, it can also play another important role. This form of speech contains the function of forming a certain plan for solving a problem or task, thus becoming a kind of means of thinking.
3. The egocentric speech of a baby is very similar to the inner mental speech of an adult. They have a lot in common: a shortened train of thought, the impossibility of understanding by the interlocutor without the use of additional context. Thus, one of the main functions of this phenomenon is the transition of speech in the process of its formation from internal to external.
4. In later years, such speech does not disappear, but passes into egocentric thinking - inner speech.
5. The intellectual function of this phenomenon cannot be considered a direct consequence of the egocentrism of children's thought, because there is absolutely no connection between these concepts. In fact, egocentric speech quite early becomes a kind of verbal formulation of the baby's realistic thinking.

How to react?

These conclusions seem much more logical and help not to worry too much if the child shows signs of an egocentric form of communication. After all, this does not mean focusing solely on oneself or social ineptness, and even more so, it is not some kind of severe mental disorder, for example, as some quite mistakenly confuse it with manifestations of schizophrenia. Egocentric speech is only a transitional stage in the development of the child's logical thinking and eventually turns into an internal one. Therefore, many modern psychologists say that the egocentric form of speech does not need to be corrected or cured - it is absolutely normal.

egocentric speech occupies an intermediate position between external and internal speech. This speech is not directed at a communication partner, but at oneself, is not calculated and does not imply any reaction from another person who is present at the moment and who is next to the speaker

According to the teaching J. Piaget, the egocentric speech of the child is a direct expression of the egocentrism of the child's thought, which, in turn, is a compromise between the original autism of the child's thinking and its socialization. In this compromise, as the child develops, elements of autism decrease and elements of socialized thought increase. Thanks to this, egocentrism in thinking, as in speech, gradually disappears. In its function, egocentric speech in this case is a simple accompaniment that accompanies

the main melody of children's activity. It is rather a concomitant phenomenon than a phenomenon that has an independent functional significance. This speech does not perform any function in the behavior and thinking of the child. And, finally, since it is an expression of children's egocentrism, and the latter is doomed to die out in the course of child development, naturally, its fate is also a dying, parallel to the dying of egocentrism in the child's thought. this speech is a direct expression of the degree of insufficiency and incompleteness of the socialization of children's speech.

According to L.S. IN Ygotsk y, egocentric speech is one of the phenomena of the transition from interpsychic functions to

intrapsychic. This transition is a general law for the development of all higher mental functions, which initially arise as forms of activity in cooperation and only then are transferred by the child into the sphere of their psychological forms of activity. Gradual individualization, arising on the basis of the internal sociality of the child, is the main path of child development. The function of egocentric speech is represented by L.S. Vygotsky as an independent melody, an independent function serving the purposes of mental orientation,

Considerations and thinking, this is speech for oneself, serving the child's thinking in the most intimate way. Egocentric speech is internal speech in its psychological function and external in its structure. Its fate is to develop into inner speech.

The problem of the relationship between thinking and speech.

the main question is about the nature of the real connection between these processes, about their genetic roots and the transformations that they undergo in the process of their separate and joint development. Vygotsky expresses the central idea of ​​his research in the formula: the relation of thought to word is, first of all, not a thing, but a process, this relation is a movement from thought to word and vice versa - from word to thought. Every thought has movement, flow, deployment. In a word, thought performs a function. the flow of thought takes place as an internal movement through a whole series of planes. The internal, semantic side of speech and the sounding phasic side of speech. These two planes, although they form a true unity, have their own

features, their own special laws of motion. Third Plan movement from thought to word - the dance of inner speech.

The main feature of internal speech is its fragmentation, abbreviation compared to external speech. The transformation of external speech into internal occurs according to a certain law: in it, first of all, the subject is reduced. The fourth plane of speech thinking is thought itself.. Units of thought and units of speech do not match. Thought does not consist of separate words in the same way as speech, but is something whole, much larger than a single word. The process of transition from thought to speech is an extremely complex process of dismembering thought and recreating it in words. the path from thought to word is an indirect, internally mediated path. Thought from our motives, needs, interests, emotions. Understanding someone else's thought becomes possible when we reveal its effective background.

Speech thinking is a dynamic whole in which the relationship between thought and word is revealed as a transition from one plane to another. This analysis was carried out from the external plan to the internal one. In speech thinking, the movement goes from the motive that generates any thought to its mediation in the inner word, then in the meanings of external words, and, finally, in the words

L. S. Vygotsky gives a completely different, in many respects opposite interpretation to the phenomenon of egocentric children's speech. His research led to the conclusion that egocentric speech very early begins to play an extremely important, unique role in the child's activity. He tried to understand what causes the child's egocentric speech and what causes it. To do this, during the experiment, a number of difficult moments were introduced into the child's activity. For example, when drawing freely at the right moment, the child did not have at hand the pencil or paper he needed. Experiments have shown that such difficulties in children's activities sharply increase the coefficient of egocentric speech. The child, finding himself in difficulty, tried to comprehend the situation and did this with the help of speech: “Where is the pencil, I need a blue pencil, but I don’t have it. It's okay, I'll paint it red instead, moisten it with water, it will darken and be like blue, ”the child reasoned to himself.

Based on these results, L. S. Vygotsky suggested that one of the factors causing egocentric speech is difficulties or disturbances in smoothly running activities. In such a speech, the child tried to comprehend the situation and plan his actions with the help of words.

Older children (after the age of seven) behaved somewhat differently - they peered, thought, and then found a way out. When asked what he was thinking about, the child gave answers very close to the statements of preschoolers aloud. Thus, it can be assumed that the same operation

which occurs in a preschooler in open speech aloud, in a schoolchild it is carried out in internal, soundless speech.

L. S. Vygotsky suggested that egocentric speech, in addition to a purely expressive function, besides the fact that it simply accompanies children's activity, very easily becomes a means of thinking for a child, that is, it helps the child to understand the situation and solve the problem that has arisen.

It should be emphasized that L. S. Vygotsky considered speech as a means of human thinking. Human thinking not only expresses itself in speech, but is also carried out in it. Thinking takes place on the plane of inner speech, which differs substantially from outer speech in its function and structure. Unlike external or communicative speech, it is not directed at the interlocutor and does not imply an impact on him; it is extremely abbreviated, it omits everything that is before the eyes, it is predicative (that is, predicates and predicates predominate in it), it is understandable only for itself.

The egocentric speech of a preschooler has much in common with the internal speech of an adult: it is incomprehensible to others, it is shortened, it tends to skip, etc. All this undoubtedly brings the egocentric speech of the child and the internal speech of the adult closer. The fact of the disappearance of egocentric speech at school age allows us to say that after the age of seven, it does not die out, but turns into inner speech, or leaves it inside.

According to Vygotsky, egocentric speech is an independent function for a child. It serves for the purpose of mental orientation, awareness of difficulties and obstacles. This speech is for myself. It does not fade away as in Piaget, but develops and passes into inner speech. Inner speech is a special function of the psyche; it constitutes a transitional stage between thought and expanded external speech. External speech is the transformation of thought into word. The word dies in inner speech, giving birth to a thought. It is not always possible to express a thought in words, a thought does not consist of separate words like speech. A direct transition of a thought into a word is impossible, therefore, someone else's thought is not always clear. Vygotsky considers egocentric speech to be an intermediate stage in the formation of inner speech in a child. The transition is carried out through the division of the functions of speech, the isolation of egocentric speech, its gradual reduction, and, finally, through its transformation into inner speech.

So, we can see how the explanation of the same phenomenon changes dramatically depending on the theoretical positions of the author and on the understanding of the starting point of development. If for Piaget this starting point is autism, which is gradually supplanted by the social world, then for Vygotsky the child is initially as social as possible, and in the course of his social development his individual psyche and his inner life arise, the main means of which is inner speech. In a discussion with J. Piaget, L. S. Vygotsky convincingly showed that the actual movement of the process of development of children's thinking is not from the individual to the socialized, but from the social to the individual.

Eg. speech. Vygotsky: an early form of inner speech. Piaget: speech is not for oneself, but for oneself.

Her appointment. Vygotsky: internal dialogue. Piaget: there is none.

Experiment: difficulties in the daily activities of the child - egocentric statements when faced with difficulties. Eg. speech: a) planning (behavior), b) regulating.

Vygotsky: the degree of context development. Written > oral > dialogue. The unit of speech is the word. The psychological side of the word is the meaning. In inner speech, the meaning different from meaning. The child can master the concepts (uses for himself) and continue to use speech signs. The meaning of a word is given by a certain context. "The value is given by the external context, which must be assigned." In inner speech, the meaning of a word can make sense.

When presenting this question, one can proceed from the opposition of two theories of egocentric speech - Piaget and Vygotsky. According to Piaget, the egocentric speech of the child is a direct expression of the egocentrism of the child's thought, which, in turn, is a compromise between the initial autism of the child's thinking and its gradual socialization! In egocentric speech, the child does not have to adapt to the thought of an adult; therefore, his thought remains maximally egocentric, which finds its expression in the incomprehensibility of egocentric speech for another, in its abbreviation and its other structural features. According to its function, eg. speech is a simple accompaniment that accompanies the main melody of children's activity and does not change anything in this melody itself. This speech does not perform any function in the behavior and thinking of the child. Eg development. speech proceeds along a decreasing curve, the top of which is located at the beginning of development and which drops to zero at the threshold of school age. This speech is a direct expression of the degree of insufficiency and incompleteness of the socialization of children's speech.

According to the opposite theory, the child's egocentric speech is one of the phenomena of the transition from interpsychic to intrapsychic functions. Not gradual socialization introduced into the child from the outside, but gradual individualization arising on the basis of the child's internal sociality, is the main path of child development. The function of egocentric speech appears to us in the light of our experiments on the related function of inner speech: it is least of all an accompaniment, it is an independent melody, an independent function that serves the purposes of mental orientation, awareness of overcoming difficulties and obstacles, consideration and thinking, it is speech for oneself, serving the most intimate way of thinking a child. In contrast to Piaget's opinion, Vygotsky believes that egocentric speech develops not along a fading, but along an ascending curve. Its development is not involution, but true evolution. From the point of view of our hypothesis, egocentric speech is speech that is internal in its psychological function and external in its structure. Its fate is to develop into inner speech. According to the facts from the experiments, the coefficient of egocentric speech will increase with difficulties in activities that require awareness and reflection. The fall of egocentric speech says nothing more than that only one single feature of this speech is decreasing - namely, its vocalization, its sound. Considering the drop in the coefficient of egocentric speech to zero as a symptom of the dying of egocentric speech is exactly the same as considering the death of counting the moment when the child stops using his fingers when counting and switches from counting out loud to counting in his head. This is not a death, but the birth of a new form of speech.

Vygotsky decides to set up an experiment in which the main idea prove a hypothesis Piaget that any exemption of the child from the need to use socialized speech necessary should lead to a sharp increase in the coefficient of speech at the expense of socialization, because all this should create the most favorable conditions for the free and complete identification of the lack of socialization of the child’s thought and speech OR refute: if eg. speech stems from the insufficient differentiation of speech for oneself from speech for others, then all these changes in the situation should be reflected in a sharp drop in egocentric speech. Piaget describes, but does not attach any theoretical significance to, three features of this speech: 1) what it is collective monologue, i.e., it manifests itself only in the children's team in the presence of other children engaged in the same activity, and not when the child is left with himself; 2) what this the collective monologue is accompanied, as Piaget himself notes, by the illusion of understanding; the fact that the child believes and believes that his egocentric statements addressed to no one are understood by others; 3) what this speech is for yourself has the character of external speech, completely resembling socialized speech, and not pronounced in a whisper, indistinctly, to oneself.

In the first series of our experiments, we tried to destroy the illusion of understanding by other children arising from egocentric speech in a child: we organized his activities in a group of non-speaking deaf-mute children, or placed him in a group of children who spoke a language foreign to him. Experiments have shown that the coefficient of selfishness in a critical experiment without the illusion of understanding fell rapidly, in most cases reaching zero, and in all other cases decreasing by an average of eight times.

In the second series of experiments, we introduced the child's collective monologue as a variable in the transition from basic to critical experience. Initially, the coefficient eg was measured. speech in the main situation, in which the phenomenon of ego-speech manifested itself in the form of a collective monologue. Then the child's activity was transferred to another situation in which the possibility of a collective monologue was excluded. The destruction of the collective monologue in a situation that in all other respects remains unchanged leads, as a rule, to a sharp drop in the coefficient eg. speech. The ratio plummeted to zero.

Finally, in the third series of our experiments, we chose the vocalization of egocentric speech as a variable in the transition from basic to critical experience. After measuring the coefficient of egocentric speech in the main situation, the child was transferred to another situation in which the possibility of vocalization was hindered or excluded. The child sat at a distance from other children, or played an orchestra/noise, or the child was forbidden by special instructions to speak loudly and was asked to conduct the conversation only in a quiet and soundless whisper. And we again observed the fall of the curve of the coefficient of egocentric speech down. According to Piaget, the egoism of the subjects is divided into two big groups, which can be called egocentric and socialized. When pronouncing the phrases of the first group, the child is not interested in who he is talking to and whether they are listening to him. The interlocutor for him is the first person he meets. Only visible interest is important to the child, although he obviously has the illusion that he is heard and understood. He does not feel the desire to influence the interlocutor. You can break the eg. speech into three categories:

1. Repetition.

2. Monologue.

3. A monologue for two or a collective monologue.

In socialized speech, the following categories can be distinguished:

4. Transmitted information.

5. Criticism.

6. Orders, requests and threats.

7. Questions.

8. Answers.

Echolalia. The child takes pleasure in repeating words for their own sake, for the amusement they give him, without addressing absolutely anyone.

Monologue. The child continuously announces to everyone what he is doing, either in order to rhythmize his action.

collective monologue. This is the most social form of the egocentric varieties of the language of the child, because in addition to the pleasure of talking, it adds the pleasure of uttering a monologue in front of others, and so on. attract - or believe that one attracts - their interest in his own action or in his own thought.