Human beings frequently talk to themselves for a variety of reasons, and this has inspired philosophers and psychologists to ponder on its significance. Yet linguistic studies are scarce, even though language is at the core of self-talk. What we know to date is that self-talk comes in different flavors. It can take the form of an inner monologue or an inner dialogue and these modes of self-talk are characterized by a particular linguistic
profile. For example, I can address myself with “I” (as in “I can do this!”) or with “you” (as in “You got this!”). 

The goal of SELFLING is to explore the linguistic properties of self-talk from a cross-linguistic perspective, exploring the language-specific characteristics of different modes of self-talk in Basque, Catalan, German, Mandarin, and Spanish.