In this chapter, Vygotsky provides a distinction between tools and signs, the
primary mediating artifacts that provide the evidence of higher psychological
functioning. He believes that an imprecise use of metaphors associated with
tools and signs might result in a blurring of the important distinction between
them. And since the researcherÕs task is Òto uncover the real relationship, not
the figurative one, that exists between behavior and its auxiliary meansÓ (p.
53), such a blurring would be disastrous. Vygotsky accuses Dewey of making just
such an error in referring to language as the Ôtool of tools.Õ
Of the two, tools and signs, tools have perhaps tended to receive more focus,
more investigation since they are external, tangible. But Vygotsky seems to be
intrigued with signs, Ôwe seek to understand the behavioral role of the sign in
all its uniqueness. This goal has motivated our empirical studies of how both
tool and sign are mutually linked and yet separateÉÕ
Vygotsky uses three ways to compare and contrast tool and sign:
1. They are similar in that either can play a mediating role in activity.
2. They are different in the ways that they orient human behavior:
a. A tool is externally oriented.
It is a Ômeans by which human external activity masters nature.
b. A sign is internally oriented.
It s a Ômeans of Ômastering oneself.Õ
3. The real tie between these activities: the tie of their development in
phylo- and onto-genesis.
ÔThe mastering of nature and the mastering of behavior are mutually linked,
just as manÕs alteration of nature alters manÕs own nature.
I found this chapter shocking as it applies research in the workplace. There is
so very little attention given to signs and their role in the development of
activity and yet issues pertaining to ÔsignsÕ (because they are internally
oriented) are perhaps the key stumbling-block to coordinated, distributed
activity.
Vygotsky begins Chapter Four of Mind in Society
with a contention that, "the sign acts as an instrument of psychological
activity in a manner analogous to the role of a tool in labor."(MiS 52) Here
Vygotsky cautions against treating this analogy as an identity. On the one
hand, treating the two as identical can lead, in Vygotsky's view, to
meaningless expressions pretending to content: "The tongue is the tool of
thought," for example. Once someone tries to interrogate this phrase for
meaning, its vacuousness becomes clear. On the onther hand, treating sign and
tool as identical can lead other psychologists, such as Dewey and other
American pragmatists, to forget the important differences between them.
In order to avoid this, Vygotsky reaches back to Hegel's famous aphorism
regarding reason:
"Reason is just as cunning as she is powerful. Her cunning consists
principally in her mediating activity which, by causing objects to act and
react on each other in accordance with their own nature, in this way, without
any direct interference in the process, carries out reasons' intentions."
(MiS 54 quoting "Encyklopadie, Eter Theil, Die Logik," which Vygotsky
draws on from Marx's Capital [199])
Both tools and signs are like reason in that they cause intended actions
without any direct interference in the process; they are subcategories of the
general categoriy of mediated activity. The difference between them is that
tools are used to mediate the physical world, and signs are used to mediate the
psychological world. Therefore, tools are physical objects that mediate the
physical world, such as wheels, pulleys, levers, and machines, and signs are
psychological objects that mediate the mental world, such as mnemonics,
gestures, and language. The physical and psychological worlds are analogous but
not identical; note even the use of the term 'world' to describe what is
psychologically mediated by signs; the term 'world' is itself a physical
analogy, as there is no locatable psychological world. A crucial difference
between the two is their orientation. The physical world is external to
tool-user. The psychological world is internal to the sign-user. Therefore, !
tools orient the user externally and signs orient the user internally. These
orientations are different things, but can take place together.
Indeed, this combination is the defining characteristic of higher mental
functions. The development of pointing, for example, takes place in Vygotsky's
model through the combination of tools and signs. The parent acts as a tool, in
that they act upon the physical world to give the child the child reaches for,
and the gesture towards the object and the failed attempt to grasp it is the
beginning of a sign, in that it acts indirectly upon the world, mediating the
child's desires through the rubric of the cultural significance of pointing.
Let me explain this in a little more detail.
"We call the internal reconstruction of an external operation
internalization." (MiS 56) In order to understand how internalization
occurs, we must understand two things: what an external operation is and how it
becomes reconstructed internally. Already from this sentence, however, we can
see an important difference in Vygotsky's model from Piaget's. For Vygotsky,
the higher mental functions begin externally, and move into the child, rather
than vice-versa. This model opposes Piaget's conception of development as the
increased external expression of internal development. This reversal is central
for understanding Vygotsky because it encompasses the uniqueness of Vygotsky's
thought. Modelling development as the external entering the internal emphasizes
the need for a developmental model to account the transition from the external
to the internal. For Vygotsky, this has two important effects, one of which I
concentrate on in this account. First, this emphasis leads Vy! gotsky to the
mediational aspects of his thought; signs and tools becomes central conceptual
objects for Vygotsky because of the work they do in explaining the transition
from the external to the internal. Second, Vygotksy's approach to signs and
tools as conceptual categories forces Vygotsky to take account of culture in a
much more nuanced, central way than previous thinkers had; as we will see, the
innate sociability of man is the reason that operations begin externally. This
accounting is not just a reaction against the Pavlovian Behaviorism that
characterized the mainstream of Soviet psychology. Rather, it is the birth of a
new way of approaching psychology, a way that takes an individuals' cultural
memberships into account without denying the presence of the individual.
Vygotsky uses the example of a child pointing to outline the process of
internalization. At first, a child sees and recognizes an object, and reaches
out to grasp it. If the child is successful, the child grasps the object and,
given the child's age when they begin to point, will frequently put the object
into their mouth. If the child is unsuccessful, the attempt is either witnessed
or not. If the attempt is not witnessed, then the child will either locomote
over to the object and attempt to grasp it again, or the child will give up.
If, however, the failed attempt is witnessed, by a parent for example, then the
process of internalization can begin. (MiS 56)
The parent, seeing the child's failed attempt to grasp the object, understands
that the child wishes to possess the object. Loving the child, the parent will
frequently pass the object to the child. Consider this from the child's point
of view. The attempt to grasp the object has succeeded, although through an
unexpected means; rather than the gesture sucessfully interacting with the
world directly, the gesture successfully acted on the wrold indirectly, mediated
through a successful social interaction with the parent. "Consequently,
the primary meaning of that unsuccessful grasping movement is established by
others." (56) After some time, the child eventually comes to realize the
primary meaning that has been established by the parent. At this point, the
action of attempting to grasp an object becomes the action of pointing. The
movement becomes simplified and oriented towards another person. So long as
others respond to the gesture in the way the child has now come! to expect (by
fetching the object), the social meaning of the gesture will be reinforced.
See what has happened here. The child no longer acts directly on the world in
order to grasp an object, but rather indirectly upon the world through others.
The child's interaction with the objective world has become mediated through
the cultural convention of pointing. In this way, a cultural meaning has been
internalized by the child through a series of three transformations:
An operation that initially represents an external activity is reconstructed
and begins to occur internally
An interpersonal process is transformed into an intrapersonal one
The transformation of an interpersonal process into an intrapersonal one is the
result of a long series of developmental events
> Both tools and signs are like reason in that
they cause intended
> actions without any direct interference in the process; they are
> subcategories of the general categoriy of mediated activity. The
> difference between them is that tools are used to mediate the
> physical world, and signs are used to mediate the psychological
> world. Therefore, tools are physical objects that mediate the
> physical world, such as wheels, pulleys, levers, and machines, and
> signs are psychological objects that mediate the mental world, such
> as mnemonics, gestures, and language.
I'm a little worried about this inference, but I guess that's because
I'm not sure what you mean by "psychological object." Surely, signs
aren't (always?) psychological objects in the sense of ideas or
mental representations. Traffic signs, words on a page, the sign on
the bathroom door, gestures and spoken words are all signs, but they
likewise have a material aspect. Similarly, tools also have an ideal
side. They aren't merely physical objects, because they are what
they are in virtue of having a history and being part of a culture.
These topics will be central to discussion today,
David. Thanks for the
summary.
mike
I share your dis-ease Matt.
mike
Antonieta Mercado January 27, 2006
Problems of Method
Vygotsky argues that new approaches to scientific problems entail a
reevaluation of methodology. This has been the case in psychology, and th=e
introduction of stimulus-response experimentation was revolutionary at it=s
time, because it brought psychology closer to the natural sciences (p.
59).
Wundt saw the very essence of psychological method as the systematic
alteration of the stimuli that generate a change in the psychological
process linked to them (p. 59).
However, Wundt experimental method only applies to elementary processes o=f
psychophysiological character (p. 60). Higher psychological functions wer=e
out of the picture.
According to Vygotsky, experimental psychology has imposed the
stimulus-response framework as the main tool to study behavior and, he
argues, this approach cannot serve as the basis for the adequate study of
the higher, human forms of behavior (p. 60), because psychological
functions are processes not objects, and the stimulus-response framework
ÒfossilizesÓ a dynamic process.
Vygotsky talks about a method to
assess higher mental functions as:
The search for method becomes one of the most important problems of the
entire enterprise of understanding the uniquely human forms of
psychological activity. In this case, the method is simultaneously
prerequisite and product, the tool and the result of the study (p. 65).
Vygotsky proposes three principles for the analysis of higher mental
functions and for the introduction of a developmental psychological
method, rather than only a experimental one. Those principles are:
a) Analyzing processes, not objects. Any psychological process
(development of thought or voluntary behavior) is undergoing constant
changes (even during experiments).
b) Explanation vs. description. Vygotsky cites K. Lewin when he contrasts
phenomenological analysis (based on phenotypes or external features), and
genotypic analysis (origins of phenomena). Vygotsky provides the example
of a whale: phenotypically a whale is a fish, but genotypically a whale i=s
a mammal. Thus, phenotypic viewpoints are descriptive in nature, whereas
genotypic viewpoints are explanatory (p. 62). ÒTwo processes that are v=ery
close in their causal-dynamic nature may e very different phenotypicallyÓ
(p. 65).
Vygotsky has touched an important point for scientific inquiry: there is
mystery in the world, and science tools are out to discover, explain and
describe those mysteries. If phenotypical characteristics were the same a=s
genotypical, there would be no basis for scientific inquiry. Experience
solely would provide with knowledge about reality and nature.
c) The problem of fossilized behavior. Studying processes that have
already died. Examples of this are mechanized psychological processes
(some with ancient origins), that are repeated over and over (such as the
case of reflexes). Vygotsky posses that Òinactive, rudimentary function=s
stand not as the living remmants of biological evolution, but as those of
the historical development of behavior (p. 64). In child development, thi=s
has been a big misunderstanding, because researchers have equated
historical as only past events, not processes that are continuously going
on before our eyes.
Vygotsky argues that in order to
understand behavioral processes there is
no need for the mechanical decomposition of responses into their elements.
However, he argues that there is a risk that by not studying the elements
of a particular process, all what is left is a description of external
responses rather than an assessment of the dynamic process (refer to page
66 and the equation).
Vygotsky proposes a causal-dynamic study of choice reactions, where
complex reactions are studied as a living process, not as fossils. He
exemplifies it with an experiment on choice reactions in adults and
children. He observes that, when cued to push a button or respond to a
stimulus, adults acquire a stable response, while children generally do
not wait until directions are given and start a process of trial and erro=r
until they associate the correct way to approach a task. In doing this,
children may use external objects as signifiers, something that does not
have direct relation to the task. In this process, learning occurs as an
internal stimuli, that is hard to assess in a linear way, because it does
not occur linearly, but in leaps and set-backs. A experimental psychology
based solely on stimulus-response is unable to capture this very process
of learning that entails revolutions and evolutions.
Hi all,
IÕm too finally joining the inspiring discussion here!
Antonieta lists in her summary three main principles of VygotskyÕs genetic or
developmental method for studying the higher mental functions. Of these I take
up the two, focusing on process & explaining instead of describing.
This relates to what Steve and Mike pointed out in the last weekÕs Luria
discussion: to the use of auxiliary stimuli as a central principle in
cultural-historical research and its implications for practical research.
Inspired by this, I am thinking of the following question:
What it means to apply VygotskyÕs principles of his method in the
ethnographically oriented developmental research today?
The empirical research settings of Vygotsky and colleagues were mostly
conducted in laboratory settings. One could say that these arrangements were
often separate from real life contexts and set up for a research purpose only.
However, since that teh focus has been on researching these similar issues in
real life settings such as after-school clubs, workplaces, classrooms etc.
Often in these cases the role of the researcher is something between an
ethnographer and interventionist...
In these cases the empirical object of research is emerging and impossible to
control and often very heterogeneous (a group of people developing their own
work or a group of students and teachers developing their learning activity
with the researcher). Also, what to focus on in an empirical analysis is hard
to determine before the whole process is over - although development and change
is what is often seen as the main focus of the study. And finally, the role of
the research subjects themselves becomes crucial in this.
I find it challenging to think what actually does VygotskyÕs genetic method
mean in these kinds of settings? And how to trace development so that one does
not only describe what happened but can also trace the critical turning points,
relations, etc., in which the subjects or the activity developed? (depending
whether to concentrate on studying the development of activity or the
development of an individual in that activity.. or both..)
Well, this is a very large topic and must be solved in each research separately.
However, it would be interesting to hear how you people have struggled these
issues in your own research settings / analyses?
Also Engestršm discusses this issue in his paper presented in ARTCO conference
in Lyon 2005, where he refers i.e. to van der Veer and Valsiner and the
challenge Vygotsky himself was also very aware of:
ÒThe notion of Ôexperimental methodÕ is set up by Vygotsky in a methodological
framework where the traditional norm of the experimenterÕs maximum control over
what happens in the experiment is retained as a special case, rather than the
modal one. The human subject always ÔimportsÕ into an experimental setting a
set of Ôstimulus-meansÕ (psychological instruments) in the form of signs that
the experimenter cannot control externally in any rigid way. Hence the
experimental setting becomes a context of investigation where the experimenter
can manipulate its structure in order to trigger (but not ÔproduceÕ) the
subjectÕs construction of new psychological phenomena.Ó (van der Veer and
Valsiner 1991, p. 399)
Who is to control what auxiliary stimuli is used and manipulated and in what
way? This is first of all a question of agencyÉ
Best wishes for all,
Anna
Vygotsky, Thought and Word Ch.7 Thinking, Sign and Inner Speech, Section 1:
Vygotsky Chapter 7 Thought and Word Sec 1
In this chapter Vygotsky begins by exploring the relationship between thought and word using a genetic approach. He pursues two genetic paths: phylogenetic (development of the species) and ontogenetic (development of the individual). He looks at the relationship between thought and word in the very early stages of the development of our species (the anthropoid stage) and the very early stages in the development of the person (childhood) (243). He asserts that we do not come to be able to think and speak as a result of a skill that has developed over time in our species but that each generation acquires thinking and speaking skills in the course of their development as individuals, and, more specifically, as they develop human consciousness (243). (Here, I'd love to know what Vygotsky meant by human consciousness Ð I can only guess because I understand that the Russian concept of consciousness is very different from Western conceptions that no doubt invade my head).
Vygotsky says that in anthropoids thought and speech (meaning, I think, vocalizations) are not connected. Also he says that in very young children you can observe speech without thought and also thought without speech (243). So, Vygotsky asks, when and how do thought and speech become linked and what is the nature of the relationship between thought and speech over time?
One common pitfall he warns is thinking about thought and word as separate (243). This happens especially when some researchers decompose verbal thinking (what Vygotsky calls the object of their study) into the two elements thought and speech, which individually do not possess the characteristics of verbal thinking. Here he is making a point about the appropriate unit of analysis for studying verbal thinking. He opposes decomposition into elements as an analytic technique that will reveal anything about the entire object of study.
His approach is to partition verbal thinking into units (244). Units are produced by the analytic process but their characteristics "relate to the whole" Ð this means that Vygotsky is seeking a unit that will relate to the object of study, verbal thinking, but is simpler. The unit he suggests in this case is 'the meaning of the word' because 'the meaning of the word' is present in both thinking and speech. He says speech without meaning is just sounds and that thinking produces meanings. Vygotsky claims the relationship between speech and thought is dialectical and complex (my words). Meaning is a phenomena of verbal thinking only if speech is connected with thought and thought is connected with the word (244).
Having established his case for 'the meaning of the word' as the unit of analysis for studying verbal thinking, Vygotsky takes a developmental perspective and looks at how this unit changes ontogenetically. In the rest of the section he critiques approaches that others have taken.
He says word and meaning are not developed through associations that can only be reinforced or weakened. Here I think he takes issue with word and meaning being related by an association Ð he believes this is not the nature of the relation. He believes the field of semantics misses that the semantic structure of the word meaning relation changes over the development of the person's lifetime. So, he says, initially we have primitive forms of generalization that relate word and meaning and later we have more complex forms (245). Then he makes the link with consciousness saying that "reflection and generalization of reality [consciousness] changes with the emergence of abstract concepts in the process of the historical development of language [the child learning to speak]". (245).
For Vygotsky, the word has a place in the inner life of thought (246), an assertion which challenges the thinking in the Wurzburg school and others of the same ilk. Vygotsky takes issue with the notion that there is a point when a concept is formed. What is incorrect with the notion, Vygotsky claims, is the assumption that "the initial moment and end point in the process of concept development coincide". (247)
Structural psychology, he says attempted to "remove not only thinking but speech from the domain of associative laws" (247). Words in this framework are seen as functional (like a stick is functional) but still separate from thought. Vygotsky has two other critiques of structural psychology. One is that this approach doesn't bring out the unique characteristics of words Ð how they're different from sticks, what their structure is, how words represent things in consciousness and so on and it doesn't, like associative psychology, allow for the semantic structure of the word meaning relation to change over a person's lifespan.
So Vygotsky sees the associative approach and structural psychology as "like identical twins". The words may be different but the thinking has not changed. Both assume that thought is independent of the word (248). None of the approaches he reviews in part one "has grasped what make the word a word (249). "All have overlooked the generalization that is inherent in the word, this unique mode of reflecting reality in consciousness." (249) and they "consistently analyze the word and its meaning in isolation from development" (249).
Section 1 is essentially a critique of the treatment of thought and language at the time and a suggestion for an alternative starting point for the study of verbal thinking. We see here Vygotsky's preference to view research problems from a genetic prospective and his quest for an analytic approach that identifies units that reflect the whole.
Judy
Judy Brown
He says there is no primal bond between thought
processes and language, but that a connection between them grows, changes and develops.
This connection can be analyzed by using word meaning as the unit of analysis,
since it is both spoken (external) and thought (internal). His analysis
confirms that word meaning provides concrete measure of the development of
verbal thinking, but, more importantly, it found that word meanings change and
develop.
This new view of semantic structure (via individual development) contradicts
other attempts to study language, such as the Wurzburg school, Selz (?), Ach
(?), and Gestalt psychology. These other prevailing theories had two
fundamental problems: they believe that words are connected to meanings via
internal associations and that the all word meanings use the same structure.
His theory overcomes those two errors by viewing thought and language as a
developmental process that can account for different semantic structures.
[His examples of erroneous methods were quite extended no doubt due to the
contentious nature of the historical context. He spends so much time framing
his critique of their theories that he only barely begins to describe his own
theory. Thus, my synopsis is rather concise.]
Hi all. My name is Momoko KASHIMA. I'm a graduate school student in Japan.
First, I would like to comment on this chapter pertaining to my study theme.
I've been working on children's play, especially on how they create a shared-new-meaning through their ongoing interaction. As Vygotsky says:
The semantic structure has three basic characteristics: -- predominance of the wordÕs sense over its meaning, of phrase over word, and of the whole context over the phrase (277) -- agglutination (277) -- word sense is characterized by different laws of unification and fusion. Words are more heavily laden with sense than in external speech -- words are Òa concentrated clot of senseE(278)
What kind of process happens for a word to get clot of sense? Right now, I'm analyzing this process by focusing on the context of ongoing interaction; toys,spaces and gestures.
Second, I'm interested in this comment:
The path of verbal thinking can thus be represented as: motive --> formation of thought --> mediation in internal word --> meaning of external words --> to the words themselves. or, if I understood correctly: motive --> formation of thought --> [Realm of Inner Speech: internal mediation of thought, first by meanings and then by words] --> to the words themselves
In my understanding, word and thought are inseparable, so I guess it should be not separable process but more complicated. Although, I can't describe it in details.
That's all my comments for now.
Hi,
My name is Ana Marjanovic-Shane. I am one of the "external" non-UCSD
students in this course.
I would like to make a comment on Momoko's comments on Vygotsky's
Thought and Language, chapter 7. (I will address Momoko directly,
creating a dialogue, although my comments are directed to everyone else,
too).
It is interesting that you chose to focus on the part of the chapter
where Vygotsky analyzes the so called "inner speech". The semantic
structure you mentioned, where Vygotsky talks about predominance of the
word's sense over its meaning, agglutination and different laws of
unification and fusion when it comes to "sense"-- are all about
characteristics of inner speech. What is interesting is that you see a
connection between inner speech and play.
The most puzzling and least examined part of this chapter, in my opinion
is the analysis of "meaning" and "sense" as two different
aspects or,
layers of meaning making. Vygotsky was partly inspired by Paulhan's
views on the relationships between word (phonetic aspect of language),
its meaning and sense. Vygotsky saw those three "layers" of language
as
being in a constant dynamic process of change and simultaneously
changing the relationships between them. In his words:
"The relation of thought to word is not a thing but a process, a
continual movement back and forth from thought to word and from word to
thought. In that process the relation of thought to word undergoes the
changes that themselves may be regarded as development in the functional
sense. Thought is not merely expressed in words; it comes into existence
through them." (p.218)
In this chapter, Vygotsky's view of "sense" is somewhat puzzling in
itself. It is, at the same time, something, which is most characteristic
of inner speech ("In inner speech, the phenomenon reaches its peak. A
single word is so saturated with sense that, like the title "Dead
Souls", it becomes a concentrate of sense. To unfold it into overt
speech, one would need a multitude of words." p 247). Therefore, it
seems to be the most private zone of meaning. But, at the same time,
sense is that aspect of language which is the most dependent on the
immediate context ("A word acquires its sense from the context in which
it appears; in different contexts it changes its sense" p. 245).
Therefore it appears that sense is a function of dialogue, of
interaction, of situation, much more so than "meaning". Meaning is
the
most stable "zone of sense" ("Meaning remains stable throughout
the
changes of sense. The dictionary meaning of of a word is no more than a
stone in the edifice of sense, no more than a potentiality that finds
diversified realization in speech" p. 245).
The core of this discussion is, of course, the phenomenon of polysemy -
a capacity of a sign to have multiple meanings. If we agree with
Vygotsky that the relationship between word and thought (or word and
meaning) is a dynamic process, rather than a constant thing, then, the
question is, really "How is it possible for word to even develop a zone
of "constant" meaning?" In other words, if polysemy is the norm,
then
how does a language ever acquire its "stable" zone of universal
meanings.
What is interesting is that you chose to touch on this in the context of
studying play, especially how children "create a shared-new-meaning
through their ongoing interaction". I would like to know if you saw a
difference in the relationship between word and thought in play, and
their relationship out of play. And what are the criteria or the
phenomena that you take into account as critical when studying new
meaning making in play.
"That concludes my turn" (a phrase that in my inner speech has more
sense to me than you know :-) ).
Ana
When I first read Thought and Language in 1967 I
was very excited by
Vygotsky's discussion of inner speech. I still think the 'concept' of
inner speech makes a lot of intuitive sense. But more recently I have
begun to worry about what V. means by 'thought' (or preferably
'thinking'), both in the ontogenetic developmental progression he
proposes and in his account of thinking and inner/outer speech in
Ch.7.
What exactly is pre-speech thinking? Is it essentially similar to the
thinking that might be attributed to other species, from dogs to
chimps; in other words, is preverbal thinking a 'lower mental
function', triggered by perception and motivation and leading to
external action of some kind? With the emergence of deliberate
communication in the first year of life (through gestures, systematic
vocalizations, etc.), the infant becomes able to get others to act
on her/his behalf and to share an interest in some aspect of the
environment. These are in fact the first functions that appear in the
infant's 'protolanguage' (Halliday, 1975) and, although not yet
'language', these are signs that seem to begin the process of
thinking together.
With the development into his/her first language, the child gradually
acquires both lexicon and grammar, making it possible to communicate
information as well as desires, and feelings. This is clearly what V.
is referring to when he writes about the beginning of verbal thought,
in which grammatical functions as well as word meanings develop as
the child engages in interaction with more mature speakers about
their shared situations. My question at this point is: How should we
think about the child's thinking? Is preverbal thinking changed as a
result of its interrelation with speech or does the preverbal
continue more or less before - perhaps at a level below conscious
awareness - while, at the conscious level thinking is essentially
sign-mediated thinking? In M&S Ch.3, V. talks about the natural
history of sign as being critical for an understanding of the
relationship between "two qualitatively different lines of
development," the biological and the sociocultural. But as has often
been mentioned, V. did not pursue the developmental nature of that
development. By the time he wrote T&L Ch.6, the relationship he
explored was between spontaneous and academic concepts. But both of
these are based in linguistic signs. So, is there any other sort of
thinking?
V puts the development of inner speech at the age of 5 years or so
and he argues that, as inner speech develops, it becomes both a means
of controlling one's own behavior and of mediating thinking. I am
happy about the idea of inner speech mediating thinking, but I wonder
how that is different from the verbal thinking that becomes possible
once the child has some mastery of outer speech. Is it that, prior to
inner speech, the child can only mediate thinking through external
speech when interacting with others?
If we now move on a decade or two, when the child is a young adult
(or even an old adult) who has learned both to read and write and to
make use of scientific concepts, what now is the relation between
thinking and speech (both inner and social/spoken and written)? Is
all thinking mediated by inner speech or can there be unmediated
thinking? This seems to be the implication of the sequence "from the
motive that engenders a thought to the shaping of the thought, first
in inner speech, then in meanings of words, and finally in words."
I think part of the problem is that "inner speech" is too narrowly
characterized as "verbal." It seems to me (in part from much
introspection) that thinking of which I am conscious is mediated by a
wide variety of sign types, including visual images, kinetic images,
numerical signs, etc. Linguistic signs of various kinds also play a
part, but they also combine with other sign types. At the same time
there seems to be an only partly conscious level of thinking,
particualrly in relation to my actions in the material environment.
To draw on V, this kind of thinking "does not express itself in
actions but rather realizes itself in them."
What do you all think?
While you all have been reading Vygotsky and Wertsch, I have been
reading Voloshinov, who has some very interesting ideas about inner
sign. I will try to summarize what I take from my reading in a future
message.
Gordon
Gordon-- Am I correct that you want to address two
related aspects of the
question:
What is the nature of pre-speech thinking?
You are inquiring, at the same time of ontogeny and perhaps some
microgenetic
moment. Both questions lead to examination of what degree of mutual
change/transformation
is involved in the language/thought "lines" of development.
My students are asking the same question in the form, "is all thought
mediated." LSV would say no, I think. When Vronsky looks at the clock and
sees only its elements, but no emergent
meaning of "a time" it is an example of unmediated perception.
I fear its mediation all the way down, to paraphrase a joke.
mike
Mike, you quote your group as asking: "is all
thought mediated?" LSV
would say no, I think. When Vronsky looks at the clock and sees only
its elements, but no emergent meaning of "a time" it is an example of
unmediated perception.
I would be inclined to call that "lower mental functioning"; it is
unmediated perception; it is not thinking. However, if the clock in
some way becomes a sign with some cultural meaning - of the time, or
the fact that it is a family heirloom, passed down from previous
generations - then it is perceived semiotically, as having a
particular meaning(s), which will tend to be related to other
meanings, such as I must get going or I shall miss the seminar or I
wonder where in his house my grandfather kept this clock. This way of
responding to the meaning of "seeing" the clock is of a higher order
of mental functioning because the occasioned meaning of the clock is
linked to other, cultural, meanings in relation to activities and
situations in which they functions as mediators.
--
Gordon Wells
Dept of Education, http://education.ucsc.edu/faculty/gwells
UC Santa Cruz.
gwells@ucsc.edu
Gordon and Mike were discussing the question of
what is meant by "pre-speech thinking" in Vygotsky, which I wanted to
discuss in light of our discussion in yesterday's class. Mike brought up the
example of a dog, which might be exhibiting a kind of pre-speech thinking when
he remembers certain things about the daily walk and gets excited about them.
Also, someone brought up the fact that we don't want to talk about a young
child as not thinking.
I have to wonder about the range of things that Vygotsky really wants to refer
to as "thinking." If it is the case that the thought is in some sense
completed in the word, then isn't it the case that thinking has some essential
tie to verbal expression or social communication? Doesn't this distinguish
thinking from what the dog is doing, for instance?
Dewey makes a distinction between "mental" and "psycho-physical"
that I think tracks the distinction that Gordon is making between
"unmediated perception" and "thinking." Any sensitive
creatures are psycho-physical, they can have unmediated perceptions, and
perhaps when Vronsky experiences the clock without being able to see it as
meaningful, he is having an unmediated perception of it.
With the dog, I think the accumulation of experience may allow the dog to
perceive and anticipate a different landscape, but he is unable to mediate his
interaction with that landscape in the way that a thinking creature might. I
seem to remember Hubert Dreyfus, following Heidegger, describing certain
activities like riding a motorcycle or navigating a crowded room or even
playing chess as more like perceiving and navigating a complicated landscape
and less like reflecting and conceptualizing (i.e., thinking) as that activity
becomes more highly skilled.
This is where my thinking on the subject is at the moment.
Matt,
I like your distinctions and I don't see why dogs, like pre-speech
infants might not engage in some forms of thinking - though I'm not
sure whether one could give the same explanatory account of both.
I think it's pretty clear that a "lower mental activity" (LSV) is
going on when a dog sees her master take the lead from the hook: that
means we;re going for a walk. But is that more than Pavlovian
association and memory? When a pre-speech child acts on nearby
objects in the ways that Piaget described in terms of the
sensori-motor stage of development, I am happy to assume that s/he is
thinking. But, at least initially, I take this to be "lower mental
activity" too. But by the end of the first year, at the latest, the
triadic intersubjectivity that occurs when a parent and infant
jointly look at or hand back and forth an object, I think this is
something different, At this stage the activity is mediated by the
object as a sign as well, in addition, as a material object that the
two act on. In discussing this level of intersubjectivity, Engestrom
quotes Radzikhovskii (1984) as follows:
"Concretely, we are saying that the general structure of
ontogenetically primary joint activity (or, more accurately, primary
joint action) includes at least the following elements: subject
(child), object, subject (adult). The object here also has a symbolic
function and plays the role of the primary sign. In fact, the child's
movement toward, and manipulation of, an object, even when he is
pursuing the goal of satisfying a vital need, is also simultaneously
a sign for an adult: to help, to intervene, to take part. (...) In
other words, true communication, communication through signs, takes
place here between the adult and the child. An objective act is built
up around the object as an object, and sign communication is built up
around the same object as the sign. Communication and the objective
act coincide completely here, and can be separated only artificially
(...)." (Radzikhovskii 1984, 44.)
"The unit defined above should be seen as genetically earlier (in
ontogeny), as determining the basic internal sign structure of human
activity, and, finally, as a universal unit and a component of
individual activity." (Radzikhovskii 1984, 49.)
Since this also fits Voloshinov's conception of sign-mediated
"ideological" meaning - in a very primitive way - I suspect he would
treat it as the very beginning of inner sign/speech.
Does that make sense?
Gordon
Makes great sense, Gordon. And fits well with
Tomasello's identification of
this same nexus as
central to "cultural learning."
But, way behind and racing to prepare stuff for class and the NSF, I worry
about the following statement:
In fact, the child's
movement toward, and manipulation of, an object, even when he is
pursuing the goal of satisfying a vital need, is also simultaneously
a sign for an adult: to help, to intervene, to take part. (...)
Sign? In Voloshinov's sense? Or as generally used in semiotic analysis? Is
it really "full communication"?
or am I again reading too quickly?
mike
Mike,
You extracted the following and commented:
movement toward, and manipulation of, an object, even when he is
pursuing the goal of satisfying a vital need, is also simultaneously
a sign for an adult: to help, to intervene, to take part. (...)
Sign? In Voloshinov's sense? Or as generally used in semiotic analysis? Is
it really "full communication"? or am I again reading too
quickly?>
Interestingly, this is exactly the same situation as Vygotsky's
example of the infant's first gesture.
Newson (in Lock 1978) argued that it is by the adult treating the
child as already intentional (e.g. stretching for an unreachable
object) that the child comes to understand his own action as
intentional and communicative. In the quote above, I take it that the
child has already made this discovery and so the adult rightly takes
the child's "movement toward" as a sign, but if and only if the child
looks to the adult while making the movement.
Obviously many of our unconscious acts can communicate to others -
and be taken as signs - but if there was no intention on the part of
the actor to communicate through the action, it cannot be treated as
a sign for the actor. So it is not full communication.
gordon
Gordon-- Locke and whoever were wrong about the LSV
analysis of pointing
emerging from reaching. The data as of about 3 years ago are summarized in
our textbook. In essence,
pointing appears to emerge as pointing and the infant plays a role in the
development of its
communicative function. This does not exclude parental interpretation, of
course.
Indexicality is the first function that semioticians (some) claim is
uniquely human. Hmmmm.
A gesture in the right direction?
mike
Here is my summary of some of the key ideas I have
got from reading Voloshinov.
In Marxism and the Philosophy of Language, Voloshinov is concerned
with the relationship between signs (particularly linguistic signs)
and ideology, which might be glossed as knowledge and understanding
in (different classes of) society. In the Introductory chapter, he
makes three fundamental claims: 1. "Everything ideological possesses
meaning: it represents, depicts, or stands for something lying
outside itself. In other words, it is a sign. Without signs there is
no ideology" (p.9); 2. "..understanding can come about only within
some kind of semiotic material (e.g. inner speech) .. consciousness
itself can arise and become a viable fact only in the material
embodiment of signs "(p. 11); 3. he continues the preceding sentence
with "The understanding of a sign is, after all, an act of reference
between the sign apprehended and other, already known, signs; in
other words, understanding is a response to a sign with signs" (p.11).
While some have taken issue with what they take to be Voloshinov's
too ready acceptance of Saussure's referential theory of the
functioning of signs, what is more important in the context of his
overall approach is his insistence that all signs are both materially
embodied and social in origin. V. sums up his initial argument in
three "methodological prerequisites:
1. Ideology may not be divorced from the material reality of sign;
2. The sign may not be divorced from the concrete forms of social intercourse;
3. Communication and the forms of communication may not be divorced
from the material base." (p. 21).
A central feature of Voloshinov's argument is that consciousness is
essentially brought into existence and sustained through inner sign.
However, while signs are realized in many different forms of semiotic
material, it is linguistic material - inner speech - "that
constitutes the foundation, the skeleton of inner life" (p. 29).
It seems, therefore, that, contrary to the account of the
relationship between thinking and inner speech presented by Vygotsky,
in Voloshinov's account thinking is always sign-mediated, At the
same time, signs always originate in the social arena of the
different forms of activity in which people engage. "..the forms of
signs are conditioned above all by the social organization of the
participants involved and also by the immediate conditions of their
interaction" (p.21). Furthermore, although different social classes
use the same language, they have differently oriented social
interests. Thus "sign becomes an arena of class struggle."
But inner sign is not simply a copy of external sign as it occurs in
joint activity and interaction. "Closer analysis would show that the
units of which inner speech is constituted are certain whole entities
somewhat resembling a passage of monologic speech or whole
utterances. But most of all, they resemble the alternating lines of a
dialogue. There was good reason why thinkers in ancient times should
have conceived of inner speech as inner dialogue. These whole
entities of inner speech are not resolvable into grammatical elements
(or are resolvable only with considerable qualifications) and have in
force between them, just as in the case of the alternating lines of
dialogue, not grammatical connections but connections of a different
kind. These units of inner speech, these total impressions of
utterances, are joined with one another and alternate with one
another not according to the laws of grammar or logic but according
to the laws of evaluative (emotive) correspondence, dialogical
deployment, etc., in close dependence on the historical conditions of
the social situation and the whole pragmatic run of Iife.
Only by ascertaining the forms of whole utterances and, especially,
the forms of dialogic speech, can light be shed on the forms of inner
speech, as well, and on the peculiar logic of their concatenation in
the stream of inner speech" (p. 38).
By now, it will be clear that there are many similarities between
Voloshinov and Vygotsky, but also some significant differences. There
are also connections to other readings in this course (such as
Engestrom's) and to recent discussions on xmca of papers by Hasan,
Bernstein, Halliday - with all of the latter seeming to owe much to
Voloshinov. He also connects very obviously to Bakhtin's emphasis on
dialogism and different speech genres. While Voloshinov does not
emphasize the relationship between sign and object-oriented activity,
to my mind his ideas are certainly compatible.
Hi Mike, Gordon and Dear ALL!
What a fascinating discussion about inner speech notion, thank you!
I am wondering if at this point of discussion we should be asking ourselves Òthe ultimate why questionÓ about inner speech -- why Vygotsky created inner speech at the first place?
We know that Vygotsky was dealing with inner mechanisms of formation of word meaning (his unit of analysis), on relationships between meaning and sense. In his usual manner he considered and rejected other (unmediated?) options available for him inÐ from mechanistic, simplistic associative psychology ideas to a-la Platonic notion of WurzburgÕs school non-sensual, non-concrete and imageless and word-less notion of thought. (and Piagetian notion, of course).
Once Vygotsky argued that thought and word develop in opposite directions and thus are in constant dialectical contradictions (thought develops from whole to the part while the word develops from the part to whole) and introduce the idea of lack of correspondence between the grammatical subject and predicate, he was forced to come up with new component to explain the whole process.
According to Luria:
Ò This forced Vygotsky to introduce new component into the process thought which thought is formed in the developed expression, a component of great significance to this process. This component was inner speech or the inner word.
Abbreviated and amorphous in structure, predicative in function, this inner speech contains the potential for making thought more precise and materializing it Ð for bringing it to its full, developed expression.Ó ( Luria, A.R. Afterward, p. 368 in The Collected Works of L.S. Vygotsky, Vol. 1)
What Vygotsky considered to be ÒthoughtÓ at this point? --- Ò in his view thought was merely an initial and sometimes inadequate
intention that reflects a general tendency of the subject, a tendency that is not
embodied in the word but completed and formed in it. Ò
What do you, dear ALL, think Ð does this help or confuses thing even more?
Cheers,
Natalia.
Hi Gordon,
I really appreciate your comments on Voloshinov. I find myself wanting to
combine an important idea about ideology you emphasize with some of Anna
Rainio's interesting comments and questions about auxiliary stimuli and
ethnography in a post over in Week 2, "L.S. Vygotsky, Mind in Society
Chapter 5." How to apply CHAT to ethnography is a huge
question. So I have some questions about how to combine ideas from
Voloshinov, Vygotsky, Luria, Cole, and others.
Luria, of course, in his Autobiography, chapter 4, describes his study of
cognitive practices among non-literate Kashgar peasants. Mike Cole
discusses several similar studies he was involved in, and critiques
cross-cultural psychology in general, in chapters 2-4 in Cultural
Psychology. And Jim Wertsch has a few very interesting pages commenting
on Luria's study in Chapter 6 of Voices of the Mind.
Please allow me to review some of this familiar materi! al to ask some
questions about how Voloshinov's idea that ideology is always present in
sign use (and therefore, cognition) might be part of the solution of how to
apply CHAT to ethnography, the question Anna discusses.
Let me start with Wertsch's comments on Luria's work on how the non-literate
Kashgar peasants handled so-called syllogistic reasoning. Luria explained
how they would show these respondents pictures of 4 familiar objects and ask
"which one does not belong?" Instead of abstractly grouping the
objects in a way that showed one did not "belong," as a
Western-educated college student might, they kept explaining how all four
objects really did belong in the picture.
Wertsh points out: "The basic difference between experimenter and subject
in this session arose because the former was trying to categorize linguistic
objects (decontextualized word meanings), whereas the latter was categorizing
the nonlinguistic referents of terms." (pg ! 132).
I too was struck how, in Luria's descriptions, th! e subjec ts kept insisting
on finding reasons to explain why - no matter what objects were drawn in the
picture - they always truly belonged there. As Jim points out, the
fundamental framework they were working from seemed to be totally different.
Mike relates a similarly striking difference in reasoning in Cultural
Psychology on page 83:
"In our work among the Kpelle [in Liberia] we had replicated Alexander
Luria's studies of syllogistic reasoning, which found that nonschooled subjects
are more likely to draw upon their empirical knowledge while ignoring the
logical implications of the terms. For example:
"If Juan and Jose drink a lot of beer, the mayor of the town gets angry.
Juan and Jose are drinking a lot of beer now.
Do you think the mayor is angry with them?
"Instead of giving the apparently simple logical answer, people would
often base their answers on knowledge of particular people, responding for
example, "No - so many men drink beer, why should the mayor get
angry?"
In another example, Luria describes how the
Kashgars he worked with would refuse to draw conclusions from explanations and
syllogisms like the following. In the far north, all bears are white:
when asked about a certain place that is in the far north - what color are the
bears? they would refuse to say they could know the answer. "I have
never been there, how should I know?" they would respond.
So back to my question, which in a sense extends Anna's excellent comments
about stimulus-means (auxiliary stimuli). Are the subjects in the above
examples "thinking differently" because they are utilizing a
different stimulus-means? If so, can we count ideology, in the way Voloshinov
describes it, as such an auxiliary stimulus-means? Furthermore, can such
"stimulus-means" or forms of auxiliary stimuli and the ideologies that
accompany them be empirically determined?
My take on the above examples is that these Kashgars and Kpelles were acting n!
ot within some "cognitive limitation," as many cross-cultural
psychologists have presumed in similar research, but rather, were acting
*ideologically*. In this case, they ideologically refused to accept
hypothetical claims as worthwhile. They were quite deliberately, even
when gently argued with, refusing to accept hypothetical claims as worth
thinking about, worth considering logically, or even answering any
inconsequential questions about. The hypothetical claim that an object in
a picture did not belong - was rejected; the hypothetical claim that a mayor
was going to get angry at so and so if they did such and such - was shrugged
off; the hypothetical claim that bears are a certain color in some other part
of the world - was denied. And the respondents often even used clear
syllogistic reasoning to do so! (For example: if I haven't been to the
far north, then I can't tell what color the bears are; I indeed have not been
there, therefore, I c! an't and won't tell you such a thing!).
The reas! oning th ese respondents offered strike
me as powerfully ideological (which of course, implies the use particular tools
of thought and analysis). Do you agree? Would Voloshinov
agree?
To sum up:
1) Could the ideological structures used by the responding Kashgars, or the
Kpelles Mike's research team worked with, or anyone at all, count as
internalized auxiliary stimulus-means in the way Vygotsky meant the concept -
an auxiliary set of signs used to organize thinking?
2) Can this concept of ideology as a key internalized auxiliary stimulus-means
be extended to enhance a CHAT-based ethnographic theory of human differences in
reasoning, cognition, and other cultural behaviors?
3) If this is valid theoretically, how can it be concretely employed in
practical ethnographic research (on any culture)?
Obviously, I am not just asking Gordon! :-))
Best,
- Steve
³The living utterance, having taken meaning
and shape at a particular
historical moment in a socially specific environment, cannot fail to brush
up against thousands of living dialogic threads, woven by socio-ideological
consciousness around the given object of an utterance; it cannot fail to
become an active participant in social dialogue. After all, the utterance
arises out of this dialogue as a continuation of it and as a rejoinder to
itÜit does not approach the object from the sidelines.²
Bakhtin, Discourse in the Novel
I think your analysis is totally consistent with the folks in the Bakhtin
Circle. And I think that the latter provide a much more persuasive model for
considering the mediative functioning of discourse than LSV precisely
because what is circumscribed as ³the social² is specifically
articulated as
a space of power/knowledge.
Mary
I used the same example in Class today, Gordon.
Michael Roth and I are discussing the issue of whether or not operations are
mediated; I will
try to get that out posted.
The system is sometimes working for reply, sometimes not. not sure why. Saw
the great
Voloshinov summary and hope we can discuss it.
mike
Hi all,
Gordon, that conclusion is really well put. I always thought of the
problems that any psychological study poses in the light of Voloshinov's
discussion of the ideological aspect of human discourse. (By the way, on
the side, when I read this text, it was published in Serbo-Croatian
under the name of Bakhtin, with a long introduction explaining various
controversies regarding who is the "real" author. It sounds actually
contradictory to even think of "one" author in the light of this
theory.
And add the translators into that, too).
Anyway, I fully agree that any kind of simple comparison of people or
groups is, if not wrong, then at least meaningless if you want to
actually make sense of someone and especially if you want to figure out
either a way to help them (clinical aspect), teach them (educational
aspect) or change them (political/religious/ideological aspect) in any
way. But there is one more thing I thought you might want to include
into the implications of Voloshinov's understanding of the dialogic
nature of human thought and the use of semiotic systems. It is about the
social science researcher herself/himself. Since we do not live devoid
of our own ideology, how can we help ourselves overcome the narrowness
of our own views? How can we understand the "emic" aspect of the
social
intercourse of the people we study and not be taken by it s "etic"
aspect? ("Emic/Etic" distinction comes from
"Fonemic/Fonetic" where it
refers to the "meaning unit/sound unit" distinction in the study of
language. Usually it is used to mean roughly: "from the inner group
point of view"/"from the outside appearance point of view").
In other words, can we at the same time understand people and activities
we study both from their own internal point of view and also from our
point of view as researchers, as members of certain social classes,
nations, races, genders, age groups, religions, etc... And if we can,
what do we make out of the differences between the two -- how do we
relate them - the two points of view - to each other?
Ana
Gordon et al-- We discussed this
posting (and other postings form outside of
ucsd) at some length in
class today.
The voloshinov materials are clearly very important to our discussion, but
owing to the fact that the
class has not made it to bakhtin and that the professor has not thought
about the lsv vs voloshinov
ideas about inner speech previously, a ready answer was not. is not, at
hand.
This does not mean that we did not discuss. For example, I really love the
idea that the thought is completed in the
word and that "thought. unembodied, returns to the hall of shadows".
But I
always have this nagging feeling that
the thought is NOT completed in the word. In a variety of senses, the
thought continues to exist only in so far as it
is appropriated (via the word) by another who replicates and keeps it from
returning to the hall of shadows...... a
baby step toward dialogicality which, in principle, I fully accept.
I cannot speak for the students, but the class has been enormously
educational for me. one example. Today Monica
Nilsson, speaking about the Engestrom expanded triangle, emphasized that the
object of activity is always (also) a collective
object, which exists for the community as something discussed, argued over,
etc. In so far as the object of activity is the
result of collective human practices, it MUST be partially imagined/ideal.
As often as I have read and agreed with various
formulations of this idea,. something about the way it was said by Monica
simply clicked for me in a new and very persuasive
way, in part becase I am teaching an undergrad course which deals with many
of the same issues through different specific
materials.
Various of us will be responding to mail of the past week. We managed to
divide up the labor of summarizing for next week
BEFORE class ended (mirabus dictu). Those reading SHOULD be available to
all.
more comments to come.......
mike
Ana et al-- This line of discussion opens up a huge
set of issues. I am
still trying to wrestle
with Gordon's very interesting and informative notes on inner speech,
language, LSV and
Voloshinov. That line of discussion, however, seems to focus our attention
on the mediator more than what it is mediating at different levels of scale.
Getting all the way from all of society to
individuals in one leap -- Voloshinov-- is very interesting, but seems to
skip over the proximal
environment where language/culture are being appropriated, deployed,
accomplished.
I have spent a lot of time on the Piaget/Donaldson-type discussions which I
think are very
important. But I shy away from going there in this discussion because too
few of the people
in my local course know the literature and we have taken on about all we can
manage at
present.
Perhaps this thread should be cut and pasted together and sent to xmca for
discussion? I am about
to propose a couple of things there, but if they don't find resonance, this
topic is almost certain to.
mike
Mike,
I agree that this opens a huge set of issues. It is obvious that all
cannot be done in one course. Gordonc's and Stevec's posts inspired me
to share some of my thoughts.
However, your words now clicked with something else that I had in mind
for a long time and did not know how exactly to formulate. And that is a
difference in the way how you use the word "mediate" and how I
understood it. I could glimpse a bit of that difference in many postings
and papers, but it was not easy to define it.
For instance when you say as you do below: "that line of discussion,
however, seems to focus our attention on the mediator more than what it
is mediating at different levels of scale".
I would try to describe where I see the difference in how "to
mediate"
is conceptualized between different authors and theories, but tell me if
it would be beneficial to do it here or to post it in xmca.
Ana
I am uncertain of how to proceed. I recognize that
there are many ways in
which the social situation of Piaget-style (and not just Piaget) experiments
mediates the interactions that occur. But I am afraid to focus on this issue
in the 6 remaining weeks because I think it would require additional
readings and I do not think the course can bear it.
On the other hand, when Gordon summarizes Voloshinov beautifully, others
benefit in this
discussion and perhaps if you and/or would take on summarizing the relevant
lit and we could
incorporate that in our discussion.
mike
Mike and All,
You wrote"... inner speech,language, LSV and Voloshinov. That line of
discussion, however, seems to focus our attention on the mediator
more than what it is mediating at different levels of scale. Getting
all the way from all of society to individuals in one leap --
Voloshinov-- is very interesting, but seems to skip over the proximal
environment where language/culture are being appropriated, deployed,
accomplished."
Like Ana, I should like you to unpack the underlined part.
But Voloshinov does not go from society to individual inner speech in one leap.
On pp.85-6, he states:
Utterance, as we know, is constructed between two [?or more G.W.]
socially organized persons, and in the absence of a real addressee,
an addressee is presupposed in the person, so to speak, of a normal
representative of the social group to which the speaker belongs. The
word is oriented towards an addressee, toward who that addressee
might be: a fellow-member or not of the same social group, of higher
or lower standing (the addressee's hierarchical status), someone
connected with the speaker by close social ties (father, brother,
husband, and so on) or not. There can be no such thing as an abstract
addressee, a man unto himself, so to speak. With such a person, we
would indeed have no language in common, literally and figuratively.
Even though we sometimes have pretentions to experiencing and saying
things urbi et orbi, actually, of course, we envision this 'world at
large' through the prism of the concrete social milieu surrounding
us...
Each person's inner world and thought has its stabilized
social audience that comprises the environment in which reasons,
motives, values, and so on are fashioned. The more cultured a person,
the more closely his inner audience will approximate the normal
audience of ideological creativity; but, in any case, specific class
and specific era are limits that the ideal of addressee cannot go
beyond.
[This is where the work of Bernstein is particularly
relevant, I think]
Orientation of the word toward the addressee has an extremely high
significance. In point of fact, word is a two-sided act. It is
determined equally by whose word it is and for whom it is meant. As
word, it is precisely the product of the reciprocal relationship
between speaker and listener, addresser and addressee. Each and every
word expresses the 'one' in relation to the 'other'. I give myself
verbal shape from another's point of view, ultimately, from the point
of view of the community to which I belong. A word is a bridge thrown
between myself and another. If one end of the bridge depends on me,
then the other depends on my addressee. A word is territory shared by
both addresser and addressee, by the speaker and his interlocutor....
Dialogue, in the narrow sense of the word, is, of course,
only one of the forms - a very important form, to be sure - of verbal
interaction. But dialogue can also be understood in a broader sense,
meaning not only direct, face-to-face, vocalized verbal communication
between persons, but also verbal communication of any type
whatsoever. A book, i.e., a verbal performance in print, is also an
element of verbal communication. It is something discussable in
actual, real-life dialogue, but aside from that, it is calculated for
_active perception, involving attentive reading and inner
responsiveness, and for organized, printed reaction in the various
forms devised by the particular sphere of verbal communication in
question.
So, if we combine Vygotsky's insights about interpersonal interaction
and the zpd with Voloshinov's ideas about sign-mediated thinking, it
seems to me we have a coherent account of how an individual's ways of
making sense of experience are given by the signs used in his/her
habitual interactions with others in his or her concrete social
milieu.
What do you think?
--
Gordon Wells
Dept of Education, http://education.ucsc.edu/faculty/gwells
UC Santa Cruz.
gwells@ucsc.edu
Of course, dialogue requires two. So it skips from
all of society to two
people to inner speech as part of the cycling
process. But what is still not there is, for example, a workplace setting,
dinner at home with several people, etc...... activity(?).
I love what you are writing, Gordon. You have really put important stuff
together.
mike
ps-- I see now underlines on my screen.
I stopped doing cross cultural research. Anna, in
large part because I
became convinced that, as practiced
40 years ago at least, it could do little more than raise questions because
of the problem of unshared social
worlds.
mike
Best regards
Lars Rossen
The second part of Vygotskys "Thought and Word", chapter 7, opens the
ball with the point that "the discovery that word meaning evolves leads
the study of thought and speech out of a blind alley" pointing towards
Vygotskys attempt to remove psychology from the obsolete trajectories of
behaviourism by putting consciousness back in the equation and reframe the discipline
as a general science that allows to ‰ÛÏcritically coordinate heterogeneous
data, to order uncoordinated laws into a system, to interpret and verify the
results, to cleanse the methods and basic concepts, to create the fundamental
principles, in a word, to pull the beginnings and ends of our knowledge
together‰Û as pointed out in The historical Meaning of the Crisis in
Psychology (1927) ‰ÛÒ the initial quote is therefore emphasizing the new
direction for the field of psychology and the implementation of a methodology
that supplements the General Genetic Law of Cultural Development stating that
‰ÛÏAny function ! in the child's cultural development appears twice, or on two
planes. First it appears on the social plane, and then on the psychological
plane. First it appears between people as an interpsychological category, and
then within the child as an intrapsychological category... Social relations or
relations among people genetically underlie all higher functions and their
relationships (From: The genesis of higher mental functions). So, in short,
when looking ahead out of the blind alley in which the field psychology
supposedly is backed up, the psychologist now " wish to obtain a clear
idea of the essence of individual and social psychology as two aspects of a
single science, and of their historical fate, not through abstract
considerations, but by means of an analysis of scientific reality"
(Vygotsky 1927).
Following this reasoning Vygotsky advocates a view on the process that
transforms thought to word as a relationship between the individual child and
the surrounding world: the meaning of a word is not given by the word itself
but evolves in a dialectical movement from thought to word and from word to
thought, thus undergoing a functional development of both its meaning and
content. In order to properly understand this transformative dialogue one must
make a distinction between two modes of speech: the inner, meaningful semantic
dialogue and the external phonetic aspect which forms a natural whole, but which
never the less may move according to individual laws.
When mastering speech the child will begin with the single word and the move on
to larger word complexes and following to coherent speech. Language will in
this sense develop from a part to a whole. But, says Vygotsky, for the child
the first single word is the whole sentence and the process should also be
regarded as moving from the whole to a separation into its parts by mastering
the breaking down of the meaningful one word sentence into a number of separate
semantic pieces, thus moving from the whole to its pieces.
The development of thought and word therefore takes places on two different
planes where the semantic and the external aspects of speech progresses
according to differentiated laws; the semantic and phonetic development is
essentially one due to these distinguished modes of development. One now
understands how Vygotsky sees word meaning as impossible to appropriate as
predefined and unambiguous and how there is a gap small between the word and
thought, which allows for an unending development.
The text then moves on to discuss the meaning of the grammatical structure,
using the sentence "The clock fell" as an example on how the same
sentence will explain numerous events with shifing psychological meaning when
it is understood in its proper context: if one where to ask why the clock has
stopped working the answer "The clock fell" will refer to the past
events that brought the clock to its pitiful current state. The psychological
emphasis is in the clock itself and the reference to the fall completes the
idea grammatically. On the other hand if one hears a crash in an adjacent room
and makes an inquiry into what caused the noise, receiving the same answer:
"The clock fell" it is now the fall and not the clock that is of
first interest and the reference to the clock that makes the story complete.
By this example Vygotsky wants to show the plasticity of the language and
often-incorrect use of grammar which keeps the connection between thought and
word in a constant fluctuation between the ideal grammar and the necessary
harmony. This point is further emphasizes though two literary examples.
Further, on the nature of grammar, it is pointed out how the child initially
makes no distinction between the verbal form and the object itself: the word
and the object is tied together so that exchanging the name would equally
change the object ‰ÛÒ if a dog was to be called a cow it would unavoidably be
supplied with a pair of horns and give milk. Only later in the development of
the child does this fusion between the semantic and the vocal structure break
down and the between the two distance increases as the subject excels towards
abstraction.
From: "xavier cagigas" (xcagigas@ucsd.edu)
Vygotsky defines inner speech as a special and unique form different from external speech. It is not simply external speech without sound, it is similar to how the representation of an object is different from the object itself. It is more akin to all the internal processes that occur before the act of speaking, and therefore, has its own structure and function.
ÒExternal speech is a process of transforming thought into word; it is the materialization and objectivization of thought. Inner speech moves in the reverse direction, from without to within. It is a process that involves the evaporation of speech in thoughtÓ [257]
Vygotsky contrasts his view of egocentric speech with that of Piaget. Piaget views egocentric speech as a direct expression of the egocentrism of a childÕs thought. It represents the transition from a childÕs initial autism to gradual socialization. Vygotsky, on the other hand, views egocentric speech as the transition from inter-mental to intra-mental function, from social collective mental activity to individual cognition based on the childÕs internal socialization.
External social speech ˆ egocentric speech ˆ inner speech ˆ abstract thinking
At 3yrs egocentric speech is undifferentiated from social speech, by 7yrs the structure and function differs from communicative speech
Egocentric speech Òfacilitates intellectual orientation, conscious awareness, the overcoming of difficulties and impediments, and imagination and thinking.Ó [259]
ÒEgocentric speech is internal in its mental function and external in itÕs structureÓ [260]
Vygotsky manipulated the childÕs environment such that based on PiagetÕs theory egocentric speech should have increased (removed the social setting such that the child could not interact with others), but it actually decreased revealing its social origins
Egocentric speech, therefore, highlights the Òprocess of developmentÓ in a childÕs individual cognition by highlighting its social origins and the mediation that takes places through the childÕs own external speech process. One can imagine Luria commenting on the underlying neurodynamic reorganization of functional systems that must be taking placeÉthe transition from stimulation from the external world to the childÕs own self stimulation.
Question to the group:
How might the phenomenon of Òmirror neuronsÓ enter into this dialogue of the transition from external to internal speech via egocentric speech?
This is a short section, in which Vygotsky begins
to explore the differences in form between inner and external speech. His
central claim is internal speech's unique function leads to a unique form,
which he analyzes.
The primary characteristic of this form is that it is reduced -- it shows
"fragmentation and abbreviation" -- but in a particular way. The
predicate is preserved while the subject is removed. It is not clear whether he
refers to the grammatical or psychological predicate and subject, and while he
claims in passing that this pattern was observed empirically in all their
experiments, later work has failed to reproduce this result.
In any case, he compares this to external speech in situations where
interlocutors share context, and thus may elide words that express only
already-shared information. In such situations, bare predicates also arise. We
should understand the form of inner speech, therefore, as the natural form of
speech whose listener already shares *all* context.
This
section begins with a focus on the characteristics of inner speech, and then
moves to a discussion of the relationship between thought, word, and consciousness.
Based on
HumboltÕs view that functional variations in speech forms possess their own
lexicon, grammar, and analysis, Vygotsky considers the differences between
external, written, and inner speech.
He describes written speech as speech without an interlocutor. It is maximally expanded and
syntactically complex. It is the
opposite of oral speech, in which shared knowledge of a subject and intonation
may facilitate abbreviation. Inner
and oral speech are also opposites, since inner speech is always
predicative. This is because the
conditions which sometimes allow abbreviation in oral speech are always present
in inner speech. Thus, the spec!
trum of predicativity can be summarized as:
Written
(never) ----- Oral (sometimes) ------ Inner (always).
How to
account for the predicativity of inner speech? First, we always know what our speech is about. Second, we can express thoughts in
inner speech without precise words.
This leads to the development of a new syntactic structure. As Humbolt noted, functional change
leads to structural change. This
development can be traced through egocentric speech, establishing the following
law: Òas the functional character of egocentric speech is increasingly
expressed, we begin to see the emergence of its syntactic characteristics. We begin to see its simplicity and
predicativityÓ (274).
Within
the phenomenon of abbreviation in inner speech lies a series of additional
structural characteristics besides predicativity. These can be summarized as follows:
--
reduction in its phonetic aspect
-- a
different relationship between semantic and phonetic aspects, in which word
meaning is relatively independent of sound
-- unique
semantic structure
The
semantic structure has three basic characteristics:
-- predominance
of the wordÕs sense over its meaning, of phrase over word, and of the whole
context over the phrase (277)
--
agglutination (277)
-- word
sense is characterized by different laws of unification and fusion. Words are more heavily laden with sense
than in external speech -- words are Òa concentrated clot of senseÓ (278)
Vygotsky
notes two additional factors which account for the incomprehensible nature of
inner speech:
-- inner
speech is not meant for communication (278)
-- an
inner ÒdialectÓ arises in inner speech in which word meanings are idiomatic
(279)
This
outline of the characteristics of inner speech can be summarized by the
following key points (279-280):
1. These characteristics of inner speech
can be found in external speech, supporting the hypothesis that Òinner speech
has its origins in the differentiation and circumscription of the childÕs
egocentric and social speechÓ (279)
2. ÒInner speech is an internal plane of
verbal thinking which mediates the dynamic relationship between thought and
word.Ó This can be further
explained as: ÒInner speech is speech.
It is thought that is connected with the word. However, where external speech involves the embodiment of
thought in the word, in inner speech the word dies away and gives birth to
thoughtÉ. Inner speech is a
dynamic, unstable, fluid phenomenon that appears momentarily between the more
clearly formed and stable poles of verbal thinking, that is between word and
thought.Ó (279-280)
This last observation requires an
exploration of thought, another plane of verbal thinking with its own structure
and course. Thought fulfills a
function; it establishes relationships.
It is not identical with speech.
This is evidenced by the fact that unsuccessful thought is possible,
i.e. thought does not move into word.
The transition from thought to speech is complex. Thought is simultaneous and whole,
while individual words must unfold sequentially in speech. ÒThe path from thought to word lies
through meaningÓ (281), it is therefore indirect and internally mediated.
This
prompts analysis of yet one more internal plane of verbal thinking Ð the final
step. ÒThought has its origins in
the motivating sphere of consciousness, a sphere that includes our inclinations
and needs, our interests and impulses, and our affect and emotion. The affective and volitional tendency
stands behind thought. Only here
do we find the final ÔwhyÕ in the analysis of thinkingÓ (282). The path of verbal thinking can thus be
represented as:
motive
--> formation of thought --> mediation in internal word --> meaning of
external words --> to the words themselves.
or, if I understood
correctly:
motive
--> formation of thought --> [Realm of Inner Speech: internal mediation
of thought, first by meanings and then by words] --> to the words themselves
This is,
however, a changing and dynamic process which can break off or reverse
direction at any time Ð unlike the constant and eternal relationships between
thought and word postulated by earlier schools.
In conclusion,
Vygotsky argues that Òonly an historical theory of inner speech has the
capacity to lead us to a correct understanding of this complex and
extraordinary problemÉ.The relationship of thought to word is a vital process
that involves the birth of thought in the word. Deprived of thought, the word is deadÉ.The connection
between thought and wordÉarises in development and itself developsÓ (284).
Vygotsky ends by pointing to future areas of study: the relationship between the word and consciousness. He writes that Òthinking and speech are the the key to understanding the nature of human consciousnessÓ Ð or, more poetically, ÒThe meaningful word is a microcosm of human consciousnessÓ (285).
Hi all. My name is Momoko KASHIMA. I'm a graduate school student in Japan.
First, I would like to comment on this chapter pertaining to my study theme.
I've been working on children's play, especially on how they create a shared-new-meaning through their ongoing interaction. As Vygotsky says:
The semantic structure has three basic characteristics: -- predominance of the wordÕs sense over its meaning, of phrase over word, and of the whole context over the phrase (277) -- agglutination (277) -- word sense is characterized by different laws of unification and fusion. Words are more heavily laden with sense than in external speech -- words are Òa concentrated clot of senseE(278)
What kind of process happens for a word to get clot of sense? Right now, I'm analyzing this process by focusing on the context of ongoing interaction; toys,spaces and gestures.
Second, I'm interested in this comment:
The path of verbal thinking can thus be represented as: motive --> formation of thought --> mediation in internal word --> meaning of external words --> to the words themselves. or, if I understood correctly: motive --> formation of thought --> [Realm of Inner Speech: internal mediation of thought, first by meanings and then by words] --> to the words themselves
In my understanding, word and thought are inseparable, so I guess it should be not separable process but more complicated. Although, I can't describe it in details.
That's all my comments for now.
Hi,
My name is Ana Marjanovic-Shane. I am one of the "external" non-UCSD
students in this course.
I would like to make a comment on Momoko's comments on Vygotsky's
Thought and Language, chapter 7. (I will address Momoko directly,
creating a dialogue, although my comments are directed to everyone else,
too).
It is interesting that you chose to focus on the part of the chapter
where Vygotsky analyzes the so called "inner speech". The semantic
structure you mentioned, where Vygotsky talks about predominance of the
word's sense over its meaning, agglutination and different laws of
unification and fusion when it comes to "sense"-- are all about
characteristics of inner speech. What is interesting is that you see a
connection between inner speech and play.
The most puzzling and least examined part of this chapter, in my opinion
is the analysis of "meaning" and "sense" as two different
aspects or,
layers of meaning making. Vygotsky was partly inspired by Paulhan's
views on the relationships between word (phonetic aspect of language),
its meaning and sense. Vygotsky saw those three "layers" of language
as
being in a constant dynamic process of change and simultaneously
changing the relationships between them. In his words:
"The relation of thought to word is not a thing but a process, a
continual movement back and forth from thought to word and from word to
thought. In that process the relation of thought to word undergoes the
changes that themselves may be regarded as development in the functional
sense. Thought is not merely expressed in words; it comes into existence
through them." (p.218)
In this chapter, Vygotsky's view of "sense" is somewhat puzzling in
itself. It is, at the same time, something, which is most characteristic
of inner speech ("In inner speech, the phenomenon reaches its peak. A
single word is so saturated with sense that, like the title "Dead
Souls", it becomes a concentrate of sense. To unfold it into overt
speech, one would need a multitude of words." p 247). Therefore, it
seems to be the most private zone of meaning. But, at the same time,
sense is that aspect of language which is the most dependent on the
immediate context ("A word acquires its sense from the context in which
it appears; in different contexts it changes its sense" p. 245).
Therefore it appears that sense is a function of dialogue, of
interaction, of situation, much more so than "meaning". Meaning is
the
most stable "zone of sense" ("Meaning remains stable throughout
the
changes of sense. The dictionary meaning of a word is no more than a
stone in the edifice of sense, no more than a potentiality that finds
diversified realization in speech" p. 245).
The core of this discussion is, of course, the phenomenon of polysemy -
a capacity of a sign to have multiple meanings. If we agree with
Vygotsky that the relationship between word and thought (or word and
meaning) is a dynamic process, rather than a constant thing, then, the
question is, really "How is it possible for word to even develop a zone
of "constant" meaning?" In other words, if polysemy is the norm,
then
how does a language ever acquire its "stable" zone of universal
meanings.
What is interesting is that you chose to touch on this in the context of
studying play, especially how children "create a shared-new-meaning
through their ongoing interaction". I would like to know if you saw a
difference in the relationship between word and thought in play, and
their relationship out of play. And what are the criteria or the
phenomena that you take into account as critical when studying new
meaning making in play.
"That concludes my turn" (a phrase that in my inner speech has more
sense to me than you know :-) ).
Ana
Thank you very much for selecting out those
passages for discussion, Momoko.
I had never before noticed the double meaning of influence that LSV
emphasizes in the final paragraph
on p. 277. That i means to "flow into" or infuse as well as
"have an effect
on" . It seems the
former is a kind of symbolic/biological metaphor, the latter evoke
mechanical causation,
at least to me.
The following discussion about external speech is also interesting, but the
thought that most readily came to mind was that as a result of multiple
infusions, to get from the sense of a word in internal speech to the
selection of a particular articulated word in external speech, one must
engage in a complex act of selection and recombination in order to come up
with word(s) that even come near in their meaning such that when others hear
and try to "make sense" of them, they come up with the same
"solution" of
"infused" meanings to arrive at the same sense of the word.
mike
I read this after responding to momoko myself, Ana.
Because of what I am teaching, when it comes to titles such as "Dead
Souls"
or "Strike"
(a movie by Eisenshtein, I am teaching about montage and my thinking about
sense is
influenced" by that teaching and accompanying reading, I think of a
"perfect" montage
film (there is not such thing) as one in which the entire ensemble of
juxtaposed images brings to life in the mind of the spectator the
"theme" of
the movie as a whole. A vaulting ambition if
there ever was one, but it is not accident that Eisenshtein refers to Luria
and Vygotsky and vice versa, a least vis a vis Luria.
mike
To me, the key in understanding "sense" is in the following passage
[which you also touch upon in your reply to Momoko. ("it means to
"flow
into" or infuse as well as "have an effect on")]:
"The third basic semantic peculiarity of inner speech is the way in
which senses of words combine and unite - a process governed by
different laws from those governing combination of meanings. When we
observed this singular way of uniting words in egocentric speech, we
called it "influx of sense". The senses of different words flow into
one
another - literally "influence" one another - so that the earlier
ones
are contained in, and modify, the later ones."
Maybe we can think of it as "syntagmatic" combinations as opposed to
meaning as "paradigmatic" combinations. Here to illustrate: think of
a
word "butterfly" -- its meaning which can be found in dictionaries is
a
concept and as a concept it is part of a paradigm that includes our
knowledge of biology, evolution, different species, etc... For each one
of us -- it is a bit different depending of the particular knowledge we
have, but it is still part of the same universal paradigm.
But, is I say something like: "remember the butterflies last spring? The
ones that suddenly appeared in your garden? You wrote about them on
XMCA. ..." Then, in that context -- which is syntagmatic -- because it
puts "butterflies" into a picture, a definite event --
"butterflies"
starts getting a peculiar sense, a particular sense which includes many
more "things" in your memory including a feeling of suspense about
why
is that particular event mentioned again, what is its purpose in the
ongoing dialogue...
To rephrase: "sense" is both a history of the previous uses of the
word,
a particular shape of the building of the meaning of a word, AND it is
also the MOMENTARY use of it which puts it (and everything that it
stands for) into yet another particular syntagmatic constellation. That
is how I understand "influx of sense".
It is interesting that you mention Eisenstein -- the technique of
montage and creating meaning by juxtaposition. It is the same solution
or the same way of thinking about it.
Ana
Hi, all.
Thank you Mike and Ana for your comments on my comment.
Both comments give me very good idea.
Double layers of words (sense and meaning) are becoming one of the most important topics to me who study children play.
In Mike words, like each piece of montage photo doesnft give a particular character of someonefs face before becoming ensemble, word meaning remains stable until it comes into context in the form of external speech.
It seems to me what happen in the process of creating varying sense (for example, creating play drama in play, daily conversation) is transforming meaning in accordance with context. Context may give the speaker-hearer hints and it also function as medium for them to arrive at the same sense of the word.
What I must struggle as a student is to demonstrate this process through observational data of play, which is very puzzling for me.
Let me try to solve this puzzle a little while answering Anafs question:
object meaning quality of meaning (Leontfev, 1981). In other words,
children transform object meaning according to play context. Objects seem to
provide meaning, which perform as medium for children creating new elements
into play.
symbolic interactionism and dialogical approaches to mediation.
Thatfs all for now.
Best wishes,
Momoko
Wertsch on Vygotsky, Voices of the Mind
Summary of Chpt.1 Prerequisites
In this introductory chapter Wertsch lays out some of the
fundamental tenets of the sociocultural approach to the study of mind. He
begins by framing this study as a choice between two research agendas that need
to be addressed, Òand, where possible, integratedÓ: the study of universals of
mental functioning vs. an emphasis on the relationship between Òmental
processes and their cultural, historical, and institutional settings,Ó (7).
Whether one adopts the former or the later stance, one must still grapple
with the question of what counts as an appropriate description or explanation
of the phenomena being studied Ð i.e. what is the unit of analysis?
ACTION: Wertsch believes that human action, specifically mediated action, is
the appropriate unit of analysis. In shifting the research focus from the
individual and the environment to action, Òhuman beings are viewed as coming
into contact with and creating their surroundings as well as themselves through
the actions in which they engage,Ó(8). This perspective contrasts with two
traditional approaches to conceptualizing the relationship between individuals
and their environment: the Lockean perspective which holds that the individual
is a Òpassive recipient of information,Ó and the Cartesian perspective which
focuses on the individual while viewing the environment as Òsecondary, serving
merely as a device to trigger certain developmental processes.Ó(8)
HabermasÕ categories of action form the basis from
which Wertsch develops his notion of action. HabermasÕ concept of action is in
turn derived from PopperÕs Òthree-world theoryÓ which distinguishes between
physical objects and states, mental states (states of consciousness), and the world
of Òobjective contents of thought.Ó There are four forms of action in HabermasÕ
typology: teleological, dramaturgical, normatively-regulated, and
communicative action. Teleological action refers to the idea that there is an
agent that can decide among a variety of means in order to bring about a
desired state. Dramaturgical action relates to what Goffman calls Òimpression
management.Ó This is the notion that an individual, conscious of the image s/he
is portraying to those around him/her, strategically stylizes this image in
order to attain certain goals. Normatively-regulated action relates to PopperÕs
Òworld of objective contents of thought.Ó In this form of action individuals in
social interaction orient their behaviors according to the norms that are
appropriate to the context in which they find themselves. Finally,
communicative action refers to the attempt by two or more individuals to Òreach
an understanding about the action situation and their plans of action in order
to coordinate their actions by way of agreement,Ó (11).
MEDIATED ACTION: For Wertsch human action does not take place in isolation. It
involves the use of mediational means such as tools and language. In studying
mental function the focus is not just on the person in action but the person
engaged in action in conjunction with mediational means.
VOICE: WertschÕs use of ÒvoiceÓ in this book is borrowed directly from Bakhtin.
Voice here refers not only to speech, but to the expression of personality, of
consciousness. WertschÕs use of this notion of voice reflects ideas found in
both Vygotsky and BakhtinÕs work: a.) an understanding of Òhuman mental actionÓ
requires an understanding of the semiotic tools that mediate this action; b.)
an awareness that some forms of human mental functioning are Òfundamentally
tied to communicative processesÓ; and c.) an understanding of human mental
function requires some from of analysis that is genetic or developmental in
nature.
VOICES: WerstchÕs use of the plural form is meant to reflect his belief that
when engaged in research reality can be represented in multiple ways. We must
try and understand what makes one or several voices dominate in certain
contexts.
MIND: Wertsch employs the term mind (vs. cognition) in order to try and
encompass the Òwide range of psychological phenomenaÓ Ð not just cognition, but
also emotion, and self-identity. Furthermore, borrowing from Geertz and
Bateson, Wertsch wishes to advance a notion of mind as socially distributed.
SOCIOCULTURAL: Finally Wertsch explains his use of the term sociocultural.
Again he reiterates what he said at the beginning of the chapter Ð his central
concern is with understanding the relationship between mental action and its
situatedness in cultural social and institutional settings.
Hello everyone... Tamara here from UCSC
Mike's recent nudge worked ( although threats of very unsatisfactory
will not work since I am already up to my ears in credits.... but no,
not lurking intentionally... just distracted by everything going on
here)
As I understand it, understanding that dialectics are happening
everywhere, and always: agent [subject]- agent; agent-position (
identity/role); agent- object; agent-instrument [artifacts and cultural
("artificial" )context] ; agent-institution (including legitimacy
norms
and formal rules) is the understanding that moves past Lockean
(individual's as passive recipients) and Cartesian (environment as
separate and secondary) perspectives. I also understand that Wertsch's
, among others, ( I think very useful) insistence on ACTION as the
most appropriate unit of analysis is to insist that we "live in the
middle" or continually train our focus on the dialectic. Of course we
must then spend considerable time defining and agreeing on the
parameters of that unit - ACTION. And then comes joint-attention,
communication thus mediated action. So I am getting more and more
comfortable accepting that yes indeed mediated action and auxiliary
stimuli are key to the way past the mind-body or mind-environment
divides . I am comfortable accepting that this mutual constitution
goes on - I just wish I had a better idea of how it all got started in
the first place.
So here I have two questions about trajectories :
?1. as this developmental process continues over time, do each of these
dialectical constituents become increasingly interdependent? So that
each moves increasingly towards becoming what Dot Robbins (ISCAR, 2005)
explained as a hologram? ( where each part is really nothing less than
a microcosm of a whole) If not what kind of trajectory do we imagine
results from the persistence of dialectics over time?
?2. And another query: while I am comfortable accepting that this
mutual constitution is the way of the living world - I get caught
wondering if we really do get to continue to talk about person engaged,
individual, or agent? Even Wertsch talks about the "irreducible
tension" between agent and instrument - which leads me to assume that
even he assumes it is at least worth keeping a place-holder for the
individual. But if individual minds and identities, consciousness
and/or self-consciousness really are only the products or outcomes of
continuing dialectical inter-action.... (rather than something like
free will impelling the process) then maybe we are just bluffing
ourselves by keeping that place-holder.... On the other hand I am
quite enamored by the idea that I am one... and so was Rosa Parks.
(Ok but you can probably ignore those last two because they really are
stupidly leading to metaphysics and the pragmatist in me is fairly
sure it is not worth drawing them out... this next one might be more
palatable)
?3. Robert L.'s comment about Wertsch's use of mind rather than
cognition, because it encompasses a notion of mind as "socially
distributed" reminded me of a discussion we had in the UCSC CHAT
Class with Gordon (earlier this fall) about situated cognition vs.
distributed cognition - I would be interested to know what the UCSD
contingent understand as the important things to recognize here? For
instance - The blind man's sense of where he is - is distributed
across his mind, hand, walking stick and the "environment" the
walking
stick encounters... altogether and at once... or we might say the
man's sensemaking is mediated by all this... but what is the
difference between conscious awareness being distributed or situated
by both tools we use and the particular environment?
Tamara Ball
doctoral studies
Education Department UCSC
email: tball@ucsc.edu
home phone: (831) 420-1080
Sorry for slow uptake. Tamara--
We discussed some of the issues you raised in our meeting yesterday, others
on Wednesday at the Dist Cog lab.
We discussed the issue of action as unit of analysis (vs activity) and also
the significance of talking about sociocutural/cutlural
historical. And we also discussed how it seems that on the one hand CHAT
gets criticized for not incorporating organizations
and social class into its analysis (on the one hand) and for eliding the
individual on the other. Two strikes!
The readings for this coming week take up these same topics, but now with
activity rather than mediated action as the unit
of analysis. And, note, that in the LSVÕs division between tool and sign he
has them as different kinds of mediated ACTIVITY, not
ACTION. We wondered if he was the one who used activity or if he got some
help in the 1950's when this was first published
in the USSR from his students in the psych dept at Moscow State U which was
headed by Leontiev.
Hard to say.
mike
I have not infrequently wondered why the "conscious act" is not a, or even the, primary unit of analyis for human higher psychological functioning. On the surface, it seems to follow the same logic that word-meaning does in LSV's analysis of verbal speech (inner and external), that the reflex follows in elementary functioning, and that the water molecule follows in hydrochemistry.
- Steve
We discussed this at length in the seminar on
Friday, Steve.
Seems like one of the other seminar members might summarize that aspect of
the discussion, but if that proves a problem, i will try to help out.
mike
So sorry to post last minuteÑnight before class
(for those of you attending the class). Life just takes over sometimesÑmore
often than I usually bargain for.
Wertsch begins by pointing out (reminding us?) that sociocultural and
universalist approaches are not mutually exclusive. He also explains that most
sociocultural studies have been done in a comparative (anthropological) mode.
The chapter is focused on introducing three basic themes in the Vygotskian
approach. Wertsch closes with a short discussion of the linkages between
Vygotsky and Whorf. The chapter is close to 30 pages, so this summary is kind
of an overview of an overview.
The three basic themes from Vygotsky are:
1. Genetic/Developmental analysis
2. The importance of social life
3. Human action is mediated by signs and tools.
These three themes are interrelated, and their power comes from this
interrelation. However, Wertsch chooses to separate them for clarity.
1. Genetic Analysis (begins on P19)
On page 20 Wertsch quotes Òit is only in movement that a body shows what it isÓ
(this quote reminds me of the changes that accompany early photographic motion
studies on bodiesÑthe shift from anatomy to physiology). But the gist is that
VygotskyÕs approach is concerned with process, not product. Many different
trajectories can lead to the same outcome.
There are several distinct genetic domains. Vygotsky focused mostly on
individual development during childhoodÑpartly for political reasons. But his
work also touches on phylogenesis (he uses Darwin and Engels), sociocultural
history, and microgenesis (an example is that he didnÕt want to throw out the
data when training subjects for experiments in lab settings). There are
different ways to conceive of the relationships between these domains. Haeckel
and Hall are cited as theorizing that the individual recapitulates the history
of the species. Werner instead proposes a parallelismÑwhere there are general
formal rules but not a recapitulation. Vygotsky rejects all this and insists
that the domains are unique. While there are formal similarities, there are
different kinds of developmental forces at work in the domains. This kind of
"critical point theoryÓ is criticized by Geertz and Sinha.
2. Social Origins of Mental Functioning in the Individual (begins on P25)
In particular, the emergence of labor and speech move the important genetic
domain into the sociocultural, rather than evolutionary. This is where he takes
up some pretty general statements from Marx and, it what Wertsch says was a
normal practice at the time, combines Marx with other thinkers to provide a
Marxist framework for his research. So, everything appears first on the social
or intermental plane first, and then it is internalizedÑalthough not as a direct
copy. ********
An idea from Vygotsky that has been widely taken up is the Zone of Proximal
development, in which adult-child (or expert-novice) dyads work together to
complete tasks which are to difficult for the child/novice to complete
unassisted. Vygotsky argues that potential functioning is as important as
actualÑand that both teaching and assessment should be aimed at the potential.
3. Mediation (begins on P28)
Vygotsky made a big contribution in his focus on psychological, rather than
technical tools. He looks at how language mediates action, so he doesnÕt see it
as a self-contained system (example of the Òforbidden colors taskÓÑand the
importance of the combined motor method). Wertsch points out that Vygotsky has
a real focus on verbal mediational meansÑwhich is perhaps due to his
intellectual roots. This can seem very natural in western settings, but it is
clear that there are probably other kinds of memory tasks, and problems that
are best solved with other strategies.
Wertsch points out that VygotskyÕs focus on intermental functioning doesnÕt
give such a clear picture of the ways that larger social/institutional forces
can shape mediational means. He gives some examples to counter a kind of folk
idea that mediational means are designed to best meet the needs of users. The
first example is QUERTY vs. Dvorak keyboardsÑthe QUERTY having been designed by
a typewriter manufacturer to slow down typistsÑand therefore prevent the keys
from sticking. And yet, it remains dominant, even though it is pretty easy to
switch. A second example is of sorting children in schools (from Mehan), and
the kinds of bureaucratic decision-making that then do far more than describe
the children who are sortedÑbut serve to constitute (part of) their identities.
Mediational means can end up shaping the setting.
Semiotic Potentials: because of the social construction of mediational means,
language can end up being better suited to some uses over others, and this is
not necessarily consistent with the ideal individual mental functioning. This
section of the chapter discusses two major areas of Òsemiotic potentialÓ that
Vygotsky investigated: decontextualization (in scientific or academic language
use) and increased contextualization. Language in scientific and academic settings
can become decontextualized when it becomes an object of reflection or study in
itself, and where the relation of words to each other is foregroundedÑrather
than the relation of words to actions. Inner speech and egocentric speech
represent speech becoming its own contextÑwhich Vygotsky calls increased
contextualization, and Wertsch proposes could also be considered a
Òrecontextuatlization. (Other readings deal with inner and egocentric and inner
speech in more detail so I wonÕt do that here).
*Vygotsky and the Whorfian Hypothesis (begins on P43)
Following Boas and Sapir, Whorf develops ideas about how spoken language
affects thought. Boas rejects a unilinear developmentÑan assumed progression
from primitive to modern, which Vygotsky assumes. Whorf and Vygotsky choose
very different units of analysis, proposition/sentence and word meaning,
respectively which lead to very different processes and conclusions (also may
partly reflect the structure of the languages they studied). In this area
Wertsch argues that they can be possibly complimentary. But they are very
different in assumptions about language- Whorf assumes it is referential, and
Vygotsky that it is functional.
-Emma
All-- this discussion appeared on a yahoo group
devoted to preparations for AERA seminars on chat. I believe it started here so
I am posting it here. Would those who wish to post it on AERA chat group please
cc this group?
mike
-------------------------------
Gordon, Ana and All,
So if I understand, we are talking not so much a typology of activity
(eg. reflexive, mechanical, reflective), but more an identification of
of attributes (eg. context such as time, space, engagement)... and is
that vs the attributes of mediated action (eg. tool-and-result)? Are
there different attributes that correspond in terms of identification
(potentially variables?) as different units of analysis for different
purposes? Which units of analysis are more readily available for
causal types of analysis - including different kinds of causality, (eg
Maxwell's how vs why)?
Also, I am still troubled by conversation, play, etc. however. What is
the appropriate unit of analysis when the activity overtakes the
participants? For me this would also include working in the ZPD.
~ Em
--- In MC-CHAT-2006@yahoogroups.com, Ana
Marjanovic-Shane
(anamshane@...) wrote:
>
> Gordon and all,
> this is a great point you make: "the biggest problem is the issue of
> Time and the various time-scales on which Activities, Actions and
> Operations are enacted ".
> It is important to think of these "units" as being exactly what
you and
> Emily say: dependent on the scope and the purpose of the analysis.
> However, it will be also very interesting to discuss how they relate to
> each other. As you said, one can think of the Engestrom's triangles as
> somehow depicting some of those relations and I would love to hear more
> thoughts regarding representations like that - and especially as they
> relate to concrete research issues and settings.
> Another point that I would love to address in the course is the use of
> terms "activity", "action" and "act"
("operation") in this theory as
> opposed to the intuitive everyday use.
> And since Emily also thinks that "mediation" point of view is
not
always
> pertinent to the analysis, I would also like to hear some discussion on
> what does "mediation" mean for different people and in different
> research contexts.
> Ana
>