Some Muʿtazilī arguments understand being a speaker (mutakallim) through producing speech sounds or letters, possibly in a created locus. The attribution is thereby understood in terms of an act of creation rather than an eternal attribute subsisting in the divine essence.
Proponents of inner speech reply that merely generating a sound is not identical with possessing speech as an attribute. Sound created at a location does not, on its own, establish the relation of speech intended in the doctrine of an eternal divine attribute.
The schools thus differ not merely in the word “speech,” but in the definition of speech and its relation to the speaker.