This review of the literature on self-speech, a subset of a communicative speech (speech not intended for nor effectively adapted for communication with others), focuses on the concept of self-control through language. The theories of six major researchers in the area of self-speech--J. Piaget, L. Vygotsky, A. Luria, H. Reese, J. Flavell, and L. Kohlberg--are discussed in the next section in the chronological order in which they were developed and presented in the literature. The paper concludes with a brief overview of the development of cognitive behavior modification and cognitive training principles that have been influenced by the self-regulating aspects of self-speech. (AEA)