Re: [xmca] Russian for "Lines of Development" and "Janet's Law"

From: bella kotik <bella.kotik who-is-at gmail.com>
Date: Sat Aug 09 2008 - 03:37:50 PDT

If to relate only to the terms: in this case the translation is exact:
"lines of development" is an exact translation of "linii razvitija" use by
LSV, and adopting Luria's Systemic-dynamic approach it is resonable to use
the term "lines of development" in different contexts as in David's
examples. The term "genetic" in Russian can be used in two different
contexts: as a synonym of "developmental" (genesis=development) without
biological connotation (i.e. genesis of this phenomenon) , and in the
biological context. It seems that when LSV used it the genetics as science
and correspondingly the term was still in the early stages of ...genesis.
Bella

On 8/9/08, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
>
> I am mystified why we seem to be unable to communicate on this one David.
> Put simply, is a "line of dveelopment" an intelligible process or a thing? I
> say it is an intelligible process. The way we make a process intelligible is
> by rendering it into a story or narrative. A "line of development," e.g.
> Whales, is a story about a mammal that somehow or other re-adapted to life
> in the ocean. But you can also take a whale as simply an objectively
> existing class of *things* with certain properties, if you like.
>
> Andy
>
> David Kellogg wrote:
>
>> Dear xmca Russophones:
>> I'm afraid I need help again! I have two questions that only xmca
>> Russophones can answer. a) Vygotsky uses "lines of development" in several
>> places:
>> i. He talks about "natural" versus "cultural" lines of development (e.g.
>> Tool and Symbol)
>> ii He talks about "thinking" and "speech" as separate lines of development
>> (e.g. Thinking and Speech).
>> iii He talks about "emotion" and "rationality" as separate lines of
>> development which fuse (e.g. Imagination and Creativity in Adolescence).
>> iv He talks about "central" and "peripheral" lines of development in
>> "Problem of Age" and in his unfinished manuscript on child development in
>> Volume Five of the Collected Works.
>> Now, Andy sees "line of development" in Volume Five as a kind of
>> narrative: a story in which the child uses the resources at hand to overcome
>> the predicament the child faces in the social situation of development. My
>> take is a little different; I see "line of development" as meaning something
>> almost genetic: or the "line of development" of fish as opposed to whales,
>> or the "line of development" of the nervous system as opposed to the
>> skeletal system.
>> So my first question is whether the Russian expression translated as
>> "line of development" in these instances is the same, or whether Vygotsky
>> uses different expressions which are then translated, rather
>> unimaginatively, as the same. In other words, does the expression "line of
>> development" have the same line of development in these disparate works, or
>> is it the same?
>> b) In "The Social Mind" and also in "Understanding Vygotsky" van der Veer
>> and Valsiner suggest that the idea that every higher psychological function
>> was once a real, concrete, social relation between people is "Janet's Law".
>> I have not been able to find anything remotely resembling this in Janet; on
>> the contrary, a number of Janet's writings seem to suggest precisely the
>> opposite. Is it possible...just possible...that the Russian word for
>> "genetic" and the Russian transliteration of "Janet's" might look the same?
>> David Kellogg
>> Seoul National University of Education
>>
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>>
> --
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Andy Blunden http://home.mira.net/~andy/ +61 3 9380 9435 Skype
> andy.blunden
>
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-- 
Sincerely yours Bella Kotik-Friedgut
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Received on Sat Aug 9 03:38 PDT 2008

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