The question of what unit of analysis Vygotsky was using, especially in his
later work, and of what unit of analysis is appropriate for sociocultural
researchers today is not entirely settled. Several books that James
Wertsch has written or edited address this question, including _The Concept
of Activity in Soviet Psychology_ (1981, particularly the chapter by A. N.
Leontev), _Culture, Communication, and Cognition (1985, particularly in
chapters by Zinchenko and Daviydov), and _Voices of the Mind_ 1991. There
is much more on this topic, of course, but the general sense is that some
notion of *activity* as it is mediated by other people and by
tools/artifacts is appropriate.
_The construction zone_ (1989 by Denis Newman, Peg Griffin, and Mike Cole)
and _Apprenticeship in Thinking_ (1990 by Barbara Rogoff), for example,
offer approaches to situated studies of interaction that take broad, open
views of what is included in such functional systems of activity.
>In the sense I think what we cann't to give one analysis solely of children
>verbalizations or speechs because are various the expression and
>communication channels and they involve perception, speech and action.
I'd agree that you shouldn't try to limit analysis to speech.
Paul Prior
Assistant Professor
Department of English
University of Illinois
Urbana, Illinois 61801
Tel: 217-333-3024