A cloud shedding a shower of words

We can now return to the definition of inner speech and the contrast of inner and external speech which served as the point of departure for our analysis. We said then that inner speech is a unique function that can be considered the polar opposite of external speech. We rejected the view that inner speech is what precedes external speech, that it is the latter’s internal aspect. External speech is a process that involves the transformation of thought into word, that involves the materialization and objectivization of thought. Inner speech involves the reverse process, a process that moves from without to within. Inner speech involves the evaporation of speech into thought. However, speech does not disappear in its internal form. Consciousness does not evaporate and dissolve into pure spirit. Inner speech is speech. It is thought that is connected with the word, However, where external speech involves the embodiment of thought in the word, in inner speech the word dies away and gives birth to thought. To a significant extent, inner speech is thinking in pure meanings, though as the poet says “we quickly tire of it.” Inner speech is a dynamic, unstable, fluid phenomenon that appears momentarily between the more clearly formed and stable poles of verbal thinking, that is, between word and thought. Consequently, its true role and significance can be clarified only if we take an additional analytic step inward, only if we establish some general representations about the next stable plane of verbal thinking.

This plane is thought itself. The first task of our analysis is to isolate this plane, to partition it from the unity where we always encounter it. We have said that any thought strives to unite something with something else. Thought is characterized by a movement, an unfolding. It establishes a relationship between one thing and another. In a word, thought fulfills some function. It resolves some task. Thought’s flow and movement does not correspond directly with the unfolding of speech. The units of thought and speech do not coincide. The two processes manifest a unity but not an identity. They are connected with one another by complex transitions and transformations. They cannot, however, be superimposed on one another.

This can best be seen where the work of thought is unsuccessful, where – in Dostoevskii’s words – thought does not move into word. Once again, consider an example from literature, an observation made by one of Usperiskii’s characters. In the relevant scene, the unfortunate character has failed to find the words to express a thought that possesses him, He tortures himself helplessly as he wanders in silence, hoping that God will provide the concept and relieve his unspeakable burden. There is no essential difference between what this poor dispirited mind is experiencing and the similar tormented words of the poet or thinker. He speaks with almost the same words:

“... My friend, our sort does not have language... What I say seems to shape up as thoughts_. but not in language. That’s our sorrow and stupidity. At times the fog clears... and, like a poet, we think that at any moment the mystery will assume a familiar image” (1949, p. 184).

Here, the boundary that separates thought from word, the uncrossable Rubicon that separates thinking from speech for the speaker, becomes apparent. If thought coincided directly in its structure and tendency with speech, this situation described by Uspenskii would be impossible. Thought has its own special structure and course. The transition from this to speech can be extremely difficult.

The theater faced this problem of the thought that lies behind the word earlier than psychology. In Stanislavskii’s system in particular, we find an attempt to recreate the subtext of each line in a drama, to reveal the thought and desire that lies behind each expression. Consider the following example: Chatskii says to Sophia: “Blessed is the one who believes, for believing warms the heart.” Stanislavskii reveals the subtext of this phrase as the thought. “Let’s stop this conversation.” We would be equally justified, however, in viewing this phrase as an expression of a different thought, specifically: “I do not believe you. You speak comforting words to calm me.” It might express still another thought: “You cannot fail to see how you torture me. I want to believe you. For me, that would be bliss.” The living phrase, spoken by the living person, always has its subtext. There is always a thought hidden behind it.

In the examples given above where we tried to show the lack of correspondence between the psychological and grammatical subject and predicate, we broke off our analysis at midpoint. We can now complete it. Just as a single phrase can serve to express a variety of thoughts, one thought can be expressed in a variety of phrases. The lack of correspondence between the psychological and grammatical structure of the sentence is itself determined by the way the thought is expressed in it. By answering the question, “Why has the clock stopped?,” with, “The clock fell.,” we can express the thought: “It is not my fault that the clock is broken; it fell!” However, this thought can be expressed through other words as well: “I am not in the habit of touching other’s things. I was just dusting here.” Thus, phrases that differ radically in meaning can express the same thought.

This leads us to the conclusion that thought does not immediately coincide with verbal expression. Thought does not consist of individual words like speech. I may want to express the thought that I saw a barefoot boy in a blue shirt running down the street today. I do not, however, see separately the boy, the shirt, the fact that the shirt was blue, the fact that the boy ran, and the fact that the boy was without shoes. I see all this together in a unified act of thought. In speech, however, the thought is partitioned into separate words. Thought is always something whole, something with significantly greater extent and volume than the individual word. Over the course of several minutes, an orator frequently develops the same thought. This thought is contained in his mind as a whole. It does not arise step by step through separate units in the way that his speech develops. What is contained simultaneously in thought unfolds sequentially in speech. Thought can be compared to a hovering cloud which gushes a shower of words.

Therefore, the transition from thought to speech is an extremely complex process which involves the partitioning of the thought and its recreation in words. This is why thought does not correspond with the word, why it doesn’t even correspond with the word meanings in which it is expressed. The path from thought to word lies through meaning. There is always a background thought, a hidden subtext in our speech. The direct transition from thought to word is impossible. The construction of a complex path is always required. This is what underlies the complaint of the word’s incompletion, the lamentation that the thought is inexpressible:

How can the heart express itself,
How can the other understand...”

Or:

If only it were possible to express the spirit without words!

To overcome this, attempts arise to fuse words, to create new paths from thought to word through new word meanings. Khlebnikov compared this kind of work with the construction of a road from one valley to another. He spoke of it as the direct path from Moscow to Kiev rather than one that goes via New York (he called himself a language traveler).

We said earlier that experiments have shown that thought is not expressed but completed in the word. However, as with Uspenskii’s character, sometimes thought remains uncompleted. Did Uspenskii’s character know what he wanted to think? He knew in the way that those who want to remember something – but fail to remember – know. Had he begun to think? He had begun as they have begun to remember. But had his thought succeeded as a process? To this question we must give a negative answer. Thought is not only mediated externally by signs. It is mediated internally by meanings. The crux of the matter is that the immediate communication of consciousness is impossible not only physically but psychologically. The communication of consciousness can be accomplished only indirectly, through a mediated path. This path consists in the internal of thought first by meanings and then by words. Therefore, ore, thought is never the direct equivalent of word meanings. Meaning mediates thought in its path to verbal expression. The path from thought to word is indirect and internally mediated.