[Xmca-l] Re: Help With Russian

[Lubomir Savov Popov]

Hi David, 

It seems to me that the translation is reasonable. My interpretation is that a two-year old child is capable of elementary and simple cooperation with and adult. If we exclude locomotion capabilities, the child might be considered somewhat on par with the adult regarding simple cooperation. 

I am not sure how the child development experts will view this statement. I am not an expert in that area. Also, I am not sure what are the minimal criteria for cooperation and how cooperation is construed by the authors. It is also possible that the authors use criteria that are very different than the criteria in the literature we use. It is a matter of different conceptualizations, paradigms, and traditions.

Best,

Lubomir

-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-l-bounces+lspopov=bgsu.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces+lspopov=bgsu.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of David Kellogg
Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2015 3:19 AM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [Xmca-l] Help With Russian

We're working through Vygotsky's very long chapter on infancy in the "Child Development" book he was working towards the end of his life. He has just introduced Blonsky's partitioning of infancy into three stages, on the basis of the presence or absence of teeth. Then, the Russian Collected Works (foot of p. 303) has this:

"На 2-м году жизни ребенок равномощен взрослому в малоподвижной комнатной обстановке и между ними устанавливаются уже отношения сотрудничества, правда элементарного, простого сотрудничества."

The English Collected works renders this as:

"In the second year of life, the child is equal to the adult in a room in a situation where little movement is required and between them a relation of cooperation, although elementary and simple, is established."

But this doesn't make any sense at all, at least not in English. Is it possible that it's a misprint?

David Kellogg