Language Teaching Research Quarterly

In our L1 the person we talk to more than anybody else each day is ourself. We talk to ourselves all the time using our inner voice, both during our waking hours and in our dreams. We do so in order to make sense of the world, to understand what we see, read and hear, to comment and evaluate, to make decisions, to support ourselves, to entertain ourselves, to control our emotions, to decide and rehearse what to say or write. Without using our inner voice we would be much less capable of interacting with the world and with other people. For example, right now I am using my inner voice to dictate to my fingers what to type and then I am using it to read and comment on what I have just typed. How would I do that without my inner voice?