Dear Karin,
An interesting problem. I'm not sure if you can get hold of 'Psychology and
the Language Learning Process' written by A.A. Leontiev (Pergamon Press,
1981) -- if you can, he has a thoroughly accessible chapter on thinking in
a foreign language. I haven't read it for a while, and I'm flicking through
it while writing this reply -- the main point I came away with (a problem I
had been intrigued with (and still am) was that there is no such thing as
thinking in another language -- whether it's Russian, English, French... I
quote from Leontiev,
:"...though used to support all our mental activities (such as the
realisation of higher mental functions: thought, memory, perception),
language in no way dictates the course of these activities, nor does it
provide a means of their realisation. Man does not memorise data imposed by
language: he uses language to memorise that which he needs. Man does not
think in a way determined by language: he mediates his thought through
language to the extent to which language answers to the content and to the
tasks of his thought (my emphasis). Man does not perceive any ready-made
significance: he ascribes such significance and verbalises it only when he
needs to perceive it. Naturally, one can understand this only if one has a
sufficiently clear idea of the interrelationship between the individual
(personal) and social components in man's mental life" (108).
Based on this line of thinking, it might be worthwhile thinking about your
question "Why does she use L1 as a reflection tool" not in terms of L1 or
L2, but in terms of the activity that the learner is engaged in.
Language(s) are but one of the mediational means contributing to the
communicative act. She may be using L1 and L2 and other non-linguistic
mediational means to complete a cognitive task that she has confronted.
Well, my tuppence worth.
Phil
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Apr 01 2003 - 01:00:07 PST