Inner speech, also known as self-talk, is distinct from ordinary language. It has several functions and structures, from everyday thinking and self-regulation to stream of consciousness and daydreaming. Inner Speech and the Dialogical Self provides a comprehensive analysis of this internal conversation that people have with themselves to think about problems, clarify goals, and guide their way through life. Norbert Wiley shrewdly emphasizes the semiotic and dialogical features of the inner speech, rather than the biological and neurological issues. He also examines people who lack control of their inner speech—such as some autistics and many emotionally disturbed people who use trial and error rather than self-control—to show the power and effectiveness of inner speech. Inner Speech and the Dialogical Self takes a humanistic social theorist approach to its topic. Wiley acknowledges the contributions of inner speech theorists, Lev Vygotsky and Mikhail Bakhtin, and addresses the classical pragmatism of Charles Sanders Peirce, John Dewey, William James, and George Herbert Mead to show the range and depth of this largely unexplored field.

Inner Speech focuses on a familiar and yet mysterious element of our daily lives. In light of renewed interest in the general connections between thought, language, and consciousness, this anthology develops a number of important new theories about internal voices and raises questions about their nature and cognitive functions.

This book gathers together psychotherapists from divergent origins to show why they think the concepts of dialogue and intersubjectivity need to be incorporated into the therapeutic process and to explore current thinking in the field.

Contemporary research in personality, social psychology and sociology has renewed an interest in the self. This volume argues that the self may consist fo multiple selves, any of which may interact with each other in a dialogical fashion. The self is presented as a non-unitary embodiment that transcends the limits of individualism and rationalism. Beginning with philosophical discussion of the self, this volume discusses the decentralization of the self in narrative psychology, the retreat of the omniscient narrator in literary sciences, the genesis of self-knowledge in children and the concept of modern society as a multiplicity of collective voices.

In a boundary-crossing and globalizing world, the personal and social positions in self and identity become increasingly dense, heterogeneous and even conflicting. In this handbook scholars of different disciplines, nations and cultures (East and West) bring together their views and applications of dialogical self theory in such a way that deeper commonalities are brought to the surface. As a 'bridging theory', dialogical self theory reveals unexpected links between a broad variety of phenomena, such as self and identity problems in education and psychotherapy, multicultural identities, child-rearing practices, adult development, consumer behaviour, the use of the internet and the value of silence. Researchers and practitioners present different methods of investigation, both qualitative and quantitative, and also highlight applications of dialogical self theory.

Aspects of the Dialogical Self is, at the core, a documentation of the outcome of a symposium held at the Second International Connference on the Dialogical Self (2002). Starting from a psycholinguistical and socio-cultural approach, its aim was to present several perspectives on the phenomenon of (inner) speech on the borders of communication and cognition and of individual and social performances. The symposium was concerned with the concept of development in different respects: in regard to the relation between inner speech and literacy (Juan Daniel Ramirez), to questions and their special role for the dialogical self (Marie-Cécile Bertau), and to the role of mutuality in psychological growth (Vera John-Steiner). The contributions are each followed by comments, thereby conveying some orality and "voicedness". This core is surrounded by an introductory part depicting the theory of the dialogical self accompanied by a proposition on modeling (Marie-Cécile Bertau), and by an additional topic which is a quite important and complex issue for the dialogical self: addressivity. The first contribution tries to open up the horizon in which addressivity could be placed, departing from philosophical considerations, going via conversational analysis to developmental aspects (Marie-Cécile Bertau). This general approach is supplied by two contributions dealing with specific moments of addressivity: the first one focuses on the special cases of open states of talk, faked multiple addressing, and self-talk (Heike Baldauf-Quilliatre). The second contribution (Marta Soler-Gallart) could well be read as a complement to Ramirez's article since it deals with dialogical reading, stating the transformative force of addressing. Thus, the book offers specific as well as general vistas of the dialogical self and of related questions such as ontogenetic and microgenetic development and conceptions of addressivity.

Marková offers a dialogical perspective to problems in daily life and professional practices involving communication, care, and therapy.