Speech behavior
A person’s speech behavior is a complex phenomenon associated with the characteristics of his upbringing, place of birth and education, with the environment in which he habitually communicates, with all the characteristics characteristic of him as an individual and as a representative of a social group, as well as a national community.
Verbal behavior is a manifestation of behavior in verbal form, consisting of:
- phrases,
- intonation,
- internal subtext.
A person’s speech behavior as a whole serves as an indicator of his general erudition, characteristics of intelligence, motivation of behavior and emotional state.
Erudition can be assessed to a certain extent by the content of speech and presupposes, first of all, the presence of deep and versatile knowledge. If from specific statements of a person it is clear that he is well versed in various issues, quickly finds compelling arguments to confirm his point of view, using adequate linguistic means, then we can say about him that he is an erudite person.
We can conclude that a person carries within himself the experience of linguistic development of generations, including the experience of wordsmiths, the experience of the country, the environment, as well as his own, that he is always within the framework of speech behavior set by the diverse conditions.
Speech is an important informative signal when assessing the emotional state of a person, in particular his emotional tension, manifested in the particular choice of words and the specifics of the stylistic structure of the statement.
In a state of emotional tension, many people have difficulty finding words when expressing their point of view. In particular, compared to speech under normal conditions, the number and duration of pauses increases. They are sometimes called pauses of indecision. This is easy to verify if you compare the speech of the same person in a calm state and in a state of emotional tension.
Difficulties in choosing words can manifest themselves in the utterance of various meaningless repetitions, in the use of words: “this”, “you see”, “you know”, “such”, “well”, “here”, etc.
Under conditions of emotional tension, vocabulary becomes less diverse. Speech in these cases is characterized by stereotypes (the speaker uses words that are most typical for him and actively uses speech cliches).
Another important indicator of emotionally intense speech is the grammatical incompleteness of phrases, which is specified in grammatical lack of formality, a violation of the logical connection and sequence between individual statements, which leads to ambiguity.
The speaker is distracted from the main idea, focusing on details, which, of course, complicates understanding. In the future, as a rule, he realizes the mistake he made, but trying to correct it, he usually gets even more confused. It should be noted that the most important indicator of a person’s mental health is speech; almost all mental disorders are clearly recorded from it.
As proof, we can give an example from student life: students presenting material in the usual conditions of a seminar, as well as during an exam. In a student audience, the speaker freely presents the material, using all the vocabulary. During the exam, the student feels less comfortable, the number of words and verbs used in his answers decreases compared to the number of adjectives and adverbs, and the number of words denoting uncertainty (“apparently,” “maybe,” “probably”) increases. There are repetitions of a single word or several words nearby. The number of words expressing an assessment of objects and events is growing (the so-called semantic non-exclusiveness using the words “no”, “always”, “at all”, which is a characteristic feature of emotionally charged speech). Pauses for thinking are lengthened, “self-interruptions” are allowed in order to correct what has already been said, which spoils the overall impression of the answer.
Voice intonations are also subtle indicators of not only states, but also deep personal parameters of a person. You can change the timbre of your voice, be in different moods, but only 20% of personal characteristics will be new, and the remaining 80% remain constant. Taking into account vocal characteristics in the study of the interlocutor provides very important and reliable information, which the speaker can hide from an attentive observer only with appropriate special training.
Intonation and timbre make up the fund of significant phonations that we widely use in communication. This is the whole gamut of feelings and the whole spectrum of social and personal relationships.
Through intonation, the speaker conveys to the listener an evaluative characteristic of the content of the text. To accurately convey thoughts, it is necessary to use logical means. This is a kind of emotional stress, or intonation of speech.
In Russian there are three types of logical intonation:
- messages,
- question,
- motivations.
At the same time, it was established that the simple intonation of the question and answer, i.e. the intonation of a message is determined aurally not by the final movement of the tone of the entire phrase, but by the movement of the tone, taking into account the tempo and intensity in the word, regardless of its lexical meaning.
Intonations, it should be noted, are universal. And even when a person is silent, his emotional state affects the electrical activity of the muscles of the speech apparatus.
Writers often designate the vocal accompaniment of the statements uttered by the characters: speak softly, insinuatingly, rudely, defiantly, with a smile, through gritted teeth, cordially, affably, gloomily, maliciously. And by the way the word “sounded” in a literary text, we recognize the feelings and relationships of the characters. And each of the shades will be revealed by the peculiarities of intonation, voice expression, as well as the “language of the eyes”, a smile.
In communication situations, a person’s voice is a very characteristic feature that allows one to form a general impression of him. In mass studies, from 60 to 90% of correct judgments regarding body size, plumpness, mobility, internal state and age were obtained, relying only on the voice and manner of speaking.
Based on voice, Anton Stangl characterizes a person’s personal characteristics as follows:
- a lively, lively manner of speaking, a fast pace of speech indicates the liveliness, impulsiveness of the interlocutor, his self-confidence;
- a calm, slow manner indicates equanimity, prudence, thoroughness;
- noticeable fluctuations in the speed of speech reveal a lack of balance, uncertainty, and slight excitability of a person;
— strong changes in volume indicate the emotionality and excitement of the interlocutor;
- clear and precise pronunciation of words indicates internal discipline, the need for clarity;
- ridiculous, vague pronunciation is characteristic of compliance, uncertainty, softness, and lethargy of will.
Types of speech behavior:
- Positive speech behavior - polite conversation, sincere conversation, constructive discussion.
- Negative speech behavior - whining, grumbling, annoying with requests, threats, tomfoolery, provoking a quarrel.
Self-amplification
Here Skinner draws a parallel to his position on self-control and notes: "A person controls his own behavior, verbal or otherwise, as he controls the behavior of other people." Appropriate speech behavior may be weak, like forgetting a name, and needs strengthening. It may have been insufficient experience while in a foreign language. Repeating a formula, reciting poetry, and so on. These methods are manipulation of stimuli, changing the level of editing, mechanical production of speech behavior, changing motivational and emotional variables, incubation, and so on. Skinner gives an example of the use of some of these methods provided by the author.
Autoclitics
Autoclitic is a form of speech behavior that modifies the functions of other forms of speech behavior. For example, "I think it's raining" has an autoclitic "I think" that moderates the strength of the statement "it's raining." An example of studies that involved autoclitics would be Lodhi and Greer (1989).
One form of autoclitic of greatest importance in the development of language is Skinner's concept of the autoclitic frame. Autoclitic frames help to quickly learn new speech behavior and build rules. Stemmer (2000) holds: “(1) Events are responsible for the productive nature of listener behavior and, through the transfer effect, speech behavior in general (2) Together with the ostensive event, events are responsible for most aspects. probably even for all aspects of early listener behavior. (3) Because visually evident learning does not require repeated reinforcement of specific responses to vocal stimuli, events are the primary cause of bursting at the onset of vocal behavior."
Research and theory
Functional analytical psychotherapy is an application of Skinner's model of verbal behavior, typically developed by adult populations in non-laboratory (clinical) settings. As such, this approach represents an attempt to empirically test Applied Behavior Analysis and Language Behavior for problems such as depression and other common clinical problems.
Modern research in speech behavior is published in Analysis of Speech Behavior
(TaVb) and other Behavior analytic journals such as
The Journal of Experienced Analysis of Behavior
(JEAB) and
the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis
(Toad). Research is also presented at poster sessions and conferences, such as at regional behavior analysis conventions or Association for Behavior Analysis (ABA) conventions nationally or internationally. There is also the Speech Behavior Special Interest Group (SIG) of the Association for Behavior Analysis (ABA) which has a mailing list.
Journal of Early and Intensive Behavior Intervention
and
Journal of Speech-Language Therapy and Applied Behavior Analysis
and publish clinical articles on speech-language-based interventions.
Skinner argued that his account of speech behavior may have a strong evolutionary parallel. In Skinner's article Choice by Consequences
he argued that operant conditioning is part of a three-level process involving genetic evolution, cultural evolution, and operant conditioning. All three processes, in his opinion, were examples of parallel processes of selection of consequences. David L. Hull, Rodney E. Langman, and Sigrid S. Glenn developed this parallel in detail. This topic continues to be a focus for behavior analysts. Behavior analyzers have been working on developing ideas based on verbal behavior for fifty years, and despite this, have difficulty explaining generative verbal behavior.
New combinations of fragmented answers
A special case is where multiple causation comes into play, creating new verb forms into what Skinner describes as fragmented responses. Such combinations are usually vocals, although this may be due to different self-editing conditions rather than any special property. Such mutations may be "nonsense" and cannot further the verbal exchange in which it occurs. Freudian slips may be one special case of fragmentary responses, which tend to provide reinforcement and may inhibit self-editing. This phenomenon is more common in children and in adults learning a second language. Fatigue, illness and intemperance can usually produce fragmented responses.
Tacting private events
Private events are a speaker-only event. Social events are events that occur outside the body's skin, that are observed by more than one person. A headache is an example of a private event and a car accident is an example of a public event.
The tacting of private events of the organism are shaped by the verbal community, differentially enhancing the diversity of behavior and response to the private events that occur (Catania, 2007, p. 9). For example, if a child verbally states, "circle" when the circle is in the immediate environment, this may be tact. If a child verbally states, “I have a toothache,” he/she may be tacting a private event while the stimulus is present on the speaker, but not the rest of the verbal community.
The verbal community shapes the initial development and maintenance or termination of beats for private events (Catania, 2007, p. 232). The body reacts in the same way to both private and social stimuli (Skinner, 1957, p. 130). However, it is more difficult for a verbal community to shape speech behavior associated with private events (Catania, 2007, p. 403). It may be more difficult to shape private events, but there are critical things that happen in the body's skin that should not be excluded from our understanding of speech behavior (Catania, 2007, p. 9).
Some problems are associated with tacting private events. Skinner (1957) recognized two basic dilemmas. First, he acknowledges our difficulty with predicting and controlling the incentives associated with tacting private events (p. 130). Catania (2007) describes this as a lack of incentive for members of the verbal community (p. 253). The second problem Skinner (1957) describes is our current inability to understand how verbal behavior associated with particular events develops (p. 131).
Skinner (1957) goes on to describe four possible ways that a verbal community can encourage speech behavior with a lack of access to speakers' stimuli. He suggests the most common method is through “single public accompaniment.” An example might be that when a child falls and begins to bleed, the caregiver tells them a statement like, "you got hurt." Another method is to "provide a response" associated with a particular stimulus. An example might be when a child runs up and cries, and holding his hands over their knee, the caregiver may make a statement such as, "You're injured." The third way is when the verbal community provides a reinforcing contingent on overt behavior and an organism that generalizes to the private event that is taking place. Skinner calls this "metaphorical or metonymic extension." The latter method, which Skinner suggests, can help shape our verbal behavior when behavior is initially at a low level and then develops into a special case (Skinner, 1957, p. 134). This concept can be generalized by understanding that the verbal behavior of private events can be shaped by the verbal community of language expansion (Catania Tacts, 2007, p. 263).
Private events are limited and should not serve as “explanations of behavior” (Skinner, 1957, p. 254). Skinner (1957) goes on to warn that "the language of private events can easily distract us from the social causes of behavior" (see functions of behavior).
