[Xmca-l] Re: Translation or Paraphrase?

[Andy Blunden]

You are dead right that Minick's omission of the phrase at 
the end of the paragraph, referring to the point at which 
thinking in concepts begins to appear, is a material 
omission and should be corrected. And yes, it is only 
conditionally and indirectly a biological basis.

This links up interestingly with an issue which Jen 
Vadeboncoeur has been wrestling with: should we say "in the 
epoch of sexual maturation," or "after puberty" or "in 
adolescence" or "as youths" or "as teenagers"? We discussed 
once before what happens in pathological social situations 
(recruitment as a child soldier, the death or disability of 
both parents, revolutionary upheavals) when young people are 
thrown into the affairs of the adult world when they have 
not yet reached the point in their biological development 
when the social formation would normally expect them to 
begin to grasp conceptual thinking and operate in the wider 
world outside of the protection of the family?

Andy

------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden
http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
On 13/06/2019 10:00 am, David Kellogg wrote:
> Andy--
>
> Prout is a little bit too literal for my own taste too. 
> But as I said, I am a sloppy translator, and I need people 
> like Nikolai to get it right. This is how I would 
> translate the passage. Notice that it DOES have material 
> that differs from the Minick translation and which is 
> present but lost in details in the Vygotsky Reader 
> translation.
>
> "However, this mode of bringing together different 
> concrete objects into general groupings, the character of 
> the links established within it, the structure emerging on 
> the basis of such thinking and characterized by 
> relationships of each separate object as part of the group 
> to the group as a whole--all of this profoundly differs in 
> type and in mode of activity to the thinking in concepts 
> that develops in the epoch of sexual maturation."
>
> I admit that the Minick translation fits better on a PPT 
> slide. But the Vygotsky original is not designed for 
> bullet points: it is designed to highlight THREE 
> characteristics (not two as in the Minick): the method of 
> grouping, the character of links, and the structure as a 
> whole, with emphasis placed on the last through 
> an elaboration which links it to the previous two.
>
> But the real problem with the paraphrase is what is left 
> entirely out of Minick and collapsed to the single, 
> biologizing word 'puberty' in the Vygotsky Reader: the 
> words "in the epoch of sexual maturation". This passage is 
> part of a chapter-long argument between Vygotsky and the 
> Buhlers in Vienna. The Buhlers haver argued that there are 
> no new elementary functions emerging in adolescence (Freud 
> casts a certain shadow here, since for all the Viennese 
> sexuality is not a new formation in adolescence at all). 
> There is no second sight, no second smell, no second 
> hearing, or taste, or touch, no second thinking arising 
> out of the top-knot of the child like a second head from 
> the skull of the Buddha. So the wherewithal of concept 
> formation is present and accounted for in a three year 
> old. Why don't concepts emerge in three-year-olds? Well, 
> in Vienna, the answer is simple--they do. The difference 
> between a three-year-old and a thirteen-year-old is 
> emotion and not intellect; the difference between 
> complexes of objects and abstract concepts is quantitative 
> and not qualitative.
>
> I think your own work (the Critical Approach to Concepts) 
> handles this problem beautifully--it is the novel social 
> projects that adolescents get involved in (including 
> social projects that include others who are now of sexual 
> interest) that really account for the novel mode of 
> bringing together, the novel character of the links, and 
> the novel structure of the whole that emerges from these. 
> Vygotsky is trying to provide, as always, a pedological 
> scheme in which that approach to concept formation can 
> make sense--he's giving us the inner pedology, complete 
> with now-unpopular periodization, of the process you have 
> described as a novel social project. The unpopularity of 
> the periodization scheme in our present intellectual 
> climate is, however, no deterrent; on the contrary, for me 
> it very much adds to the attractiveness of the argument.
>
> David Kellogg
> Sangmyung University
>
> New Article:
> Han Hee Jeung & David Kellogg (2019): A story without 
> SELF: Vygotsky’s
> pedology, Bruner’s constructivism and Halliday’s 
> construalism in understanding narratives by
> Korean children, Language and Education, DOI: 
> 10.1080/09500782.2019.1582663
> To link to this article: 
> https://doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2019.1582663
>
> Some e-prints available at:
> https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/KHRxrQ4n45t9N2ZHZhQK/full?target=10.1080/09500782.2019.1582663
>
>
>
> On Wed, Jun 12, 2019 at 12:55 PM Andy Blunden 
> <andyb@marxists.org <mailto:andyb@marxists.org>> wrote:
>
>     Well, I think a "literal" translation is as capable of
>     misrepresenting the meaning of the original as what
>     you call a paraphrase. When you read a translation,
>     without access to the original, this is a huge act of
>     trust. But if the translator is worthy of this trust,
>     I appreciate a "paraphrase" which better conveys the
>     meaning than a "literal" translation. At the same
>     time, I am on the record as objecting loudly to
>     missing definite and indefinite articles in
>     translation from the Russian, or the mixing up of
>     "unit" and "unity" which Nikolai Veresov has drawn
>     attention to.
>
>     But a good paraphrase I am happy with.
>
>     Andy
>
>     ------------------------------------------------------------
>     Andy Blunden
>     http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
>     On 12/06/2019 1:27 pm, David Kellogg wrote:
>>     Oh, it's the same issue that Minick himself and
>>     others had with the Hanfmann and Vakar translation,
>>     Andy. It's a paraphrase.
>>
>>     David Kellogg
>>     Sangmyung University
>>
>>     New Article:
>>     Han Hee Jeung & David Kellogg (2019): A story without
>>     SELF: Vygotsky’s
>>     pedology, Bruner’s constructivism and Halliday’s
>>     construalism in understanding narratives by
>>     Korean children, Language and Education, DOI:
>>     10.1080/09500782.2019.1582663
>>     To link to this article:
>>     https://doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2019.1582663
>>
>>     Some e-prints available at:
>>     https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/KHRxrQ4n45t9N2ZHZhQK/full?target=10.1080/09500782.2019.1582663
>>
>>
>>
>>     On Wed, Jun 12, 2019 at 9:34 AM Andy Blunden
>>     <andyb@marxists.org <mailto:andyb@marxists.org>> wrote:
>>
>>         Firstly, I have checked the transcription, and it
>>         is indeed true to the /LSVCW/ version.
>>         Originally, the old "Thought and Language"
>>         translation had been used here, but a few years
>>         ago I replaced it with Minick's.
>>
>>         My initial reaction is that Minick's rendering of
>>         the sentence is much easier to read and
>>         understand. What is the issue for you?
>>
>>         Andy
>>
>>         ------------------------------------------------------------
>>         Andy Blunden
>>         http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
>>         On 12/06/2019 6:41 am, David Kellogg wrote:
>>>         Andy:
>>>
>>>         On Vygotsky Internet Archive  version of T&S
>>>         Chapter Five, Section Five, second
>>>         paragraph, we've got this.
>>>
>>>         "Nevertheless, this mode of uniting concrete
>>>         objects in a common group differs from that
>>>         based on thinking in concepts or conceptual
>>>         thinking. First, the nature of the connections
>>>         that are established among the objects in the
>>>         group differs from that characteristic of
>>>         concepts. Second, as defined by the relationship
>>>         of each object in the group to the group as a
>>>         whole, the structure of the unified group
>>>         differs profoundly in type and mode of activity
>>>         from that based on conceptual thinking."
>>>
>>>         The Russian, in both the first 1934 edition and
>>>         the 1982 Russian CW edition is this:
>>>
>>>
>>>         Но способ объединения различных конкретных
>>>         предметов в общие группы, характер
>>>         устанавливаемых при этом связей, структура
>>>         возникающих на основе такого мышления единств,
>>>         характеризующаяся отношением каждого отдельного
>>>         предмета, входящего в состав группы, ко всей
>>>         группе в целом, — все это глубоко отличается по
>>>         своему типу и по способу деятельности от
>>>         мышления в понятиях, развивающихся только в
>>>         эпоху полового созревания.
>>>
>>>         The 1994 Vygotsky Reader, edited by Rene van der
>>>         Veer and Jaan Valsiner, uses the 1931 "Pedology
>>>         of the Adolescent" version of this study for its
>>>         Chapter Nine. On p. 218, it's got this:
>>>
>>>         "But the manner of the unification of different
>>>         real objects into general groups, the character
>>>         of the connections which becomes established
>>>         during th is process, the structure of the
>>>         affinities which arise on the basis of such
>>>         thinking, which is characterized by the
>>>         relationship of each individual object having
>>>         become part of the composition of the group, to
>>>         the group as a whole - all th is is
>>>         fundamentally different by its nature and the
>>>         manner of its operation from thinking in
>>>         concepts, which only develops at the time of
>>>         puberty."
>>>
>>>
>>>         This Vygotsky Reader version is an
>>>         actual translation, but the version we have for
>>>         T&S Chapter Five, which I assume is an accurate
>>>         transcription of Norris Minick's version in the
>>>         English CW, seems little more than a paraphrase.
>>>         What gives?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>         David Kellogg
>>>         Sangmyung University
>>>
>>>         New Article:
>>>         Han Hee Jeung & David Kellogg (2019): A story
>>>         without SELF: Vygotsky’s
>>>         pedology, Bruner’s constructivism and Halliday’s
>>>         construalism in understanding narratives by
>>>         Korean children, Language and Education, DOI:
>>>         10.1080/09500782.2019.1582663
>>>         To link to this article:
>>>         https://doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2019.1582663
>>>
>>>         Some e-prints available at:
>>>         https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/KHRxrQ4n45t9N2ZHZhQK/full?target=10.1080/09500782.2019.1582663
>>>
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