RE: RE: Leontiev

From: Nate Schmolze (nate_schmolze@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Sep 26 2000 - 18:53:51 PDT


diane sez,

i am not sure i am seeing this tension in Leontiev - is this part of the
historical context of the writing?

I think we could read certain tensions with Vygotsky in Leont'ev's writing.
It seems in many ways he seems to discount consciousness as an "empty
abstraction" whereas in T&L I would see Vygotsky going bout explaining it.
Along these same lines Vygotsky gave a pretty central role to language which
seems somewhat minimized in Leontev's work up. I think he's right in that we
need to be careful of assuming its outside activity and all, but at the same
time it has a certain power over our thinking, consciousness etc. I think
the language component has been developed nicely in sociocultural works
(discourse), although, sometimes at the expense of activity.

Oh, those diagrams of signs, tools, activity, motives etc from the archive
come to mind. That is the big tension for me the relationship between
language and activity. Normally we think of particular types of
activities - play, school, work - and it seems to me language can not be
limited to those activities in an instrumental way. I don't necsessarily
think that the themes at the sociocultural conference - not that I was
there - was that bad a start - cultural practices and discoursive practices.
The two seem very important to keep related though - some of the discourse
stuff bothers me (info or evidence ignoring their peoples words).

Nate

diane

   **********************************************************************
                                        :point where everything listens.
and i slow down, learning how to
enter - implicate and unspoken (still) heart-of-the-world.

(Daphne Marlatt, "Coming to you")
***********************************************************************

diane celia hodges

 university of british columbia, centre for the study of curriculum and
instruction
==================== ==================== =======================
 university of colorado, denver, school of education

Diane_Hodges@ceo.cudenver.edu



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