The dialogical and argumentative nature of inner discourse as revealed in English language teaching classroom interactions

Abstract

In this paper we analyze a language 'phenomenon' which is not normally considered in studied about classroom interaction, being considered as marginal: private speech, which sometimes 'escapes' in these intersubjective events. Analyzing interactions in English language teaching classes, using the evidential paradigm and the micro-genetic analysis, we found hints of the different interlocutors and voices present in such utterances. Private speech is normally analyzed as being monologic and the focus is on self-regulation, obliterating its pluri-functionality and marking the internal-external distinction, maintaining the social/private dichotomy, which does not reflect Vygotsky's thought (who, as Bakhtin, considers the constitutive dialogicality of language when conceiving consciousness as a drama). It is the studies of the Circle of Bakhtin, then, (besides Ducrot's Poliphonic Theory of Enunciation as well as Authier-Revuz's work) that allow us to understand another dimension of private speech, reveiling not only its dialogicality but also its argumentative nature.