The article focuses on the issues of dichotomy and polychotomy from the following perspective: a) language and speech; b) language, speech, speech activity; c) language, speech, speech activity, language material.The author analyzes the works by A.Baytursynuly, the founder of Kazakh linguistics, linguodidactics, methodology and literary criticism, with the purpose of determining and describing his scientific views on the issue of dichotomy and polychotomy. In the scientific heritage of A.Baytursynuly, the issue of dichotomy and polychotomy is presented by the notions and terms – til (language), so'iley (speak), so'ilesu (communicate through speech, i.e. speech activity). The author considers these issues on the basis of the works devoted to the dichotomy and polychotomy by W. von Humboldt, F. de Saussure and L.V.Scherba. The article presents the analysis of terminological nomination of these notions in contemporary Kazakh linguistics, which is characterized by the continuity of terminological traditions of A.Baytursynuly and is closely related to the conceptions of W. von Humboldt and F. de Saussure. A.Baytursynuly differentiated language, speech, speech activity in the Kazakh language in 1914 in the work “Til-qural” (“Language – Instrumentation”) written in Arabic script, i.e. 19 years before the publication of the book by Ferdinand de Saussure in Russian “Course in General Linguistics” (1933). The author of the article puts forth his own terminological designation of the types of speech activity in the Kazakh language, taking into account the admissibility, but undesirability of some synonymous terminological nominations, functioning in the studies of both Kazakh linguists and linguists working on the material of other Turkic languages. 1) Til – language; tildesim – speech; tildesimdik qyzmet – speech activity; til materialy – language material; 2) Tyn’dalym – listening; so’ilesim – speaking; oqylym – reading; jazylym – writing; ishtei tildesim – inner speech; audarma tildesim – translation speech. In the research process, the methods of intralinguistic comparison and inter-linguistic comparison, as well as the semanticstylistic method and the method of linguistic description have been used.