Communication · Executive Insight Brief · 326
Train the question they can use alone
Inner Speech shows how socially learned language can become a compressed tool for planning and self-regulation when the original speaker is no longer present
Premise
Communication has not fully transferred when people can repeat the message. It has transferred when they can use its distinctions to guide attention, inhibit an error, or sequence action without the original speaker present. Lev Vygotsky’s account of inner speech explains how language first used between people can become part of regulation within the person.
For executives, this changes the design standard for training, safety communication, coaching, and decision rules. The relevant question is not simply whether employees heard or remembered a phrase, but whether the language can be reactivated as a usable cognitive instrument when the situation changes and supervision disappears.
What the model is: Inner Speech (Vygotsky) in Knowledge →

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- FamilyModel
- CategoryTheories & Explanatory Models
- DomainMeaning & Clarity
What these mean
Editorial orientation · Family
Model
In this series, Model names the editorial family primarily used to understand and explain communication: theories, frameworks, effects, traditions, principles and other conceptual resources. It is an umbrella for a route into the field, not a claim that every included object is a predictive model.
Editorial orientation · Category
Theories & Explanatory Models
Explains how or why a communication process works by relating mechanisms, conditions or variables. Its value is an account that can guide inquiry into what produces an outcome, rather than a name for the outcome alone.
- KnowledgeInner Speech (Vygotsky)