Re: from Tomasello, Apes' observational learning
vera p john-steiner (vygotsky who-is-at unm.edu)
Sat, 16 Aug 1997 11:10:14 -0600 (MDT)
Hi,
I think that Tomasello's observations are particularly important in light
of his comparative research.And the positioning of communicative and
historically evolving language systems within the discussion. He suggests
the importance of imitation for the latter. I would just like to add
the role of attention to this discussion.
In infant studies there seems to be an
alternation in the attentional processes of 3-6months olds between object
and person orientation. Perhaps the particularly long period of dependence
among humans contributes to a highly social orientation of human infants,
while apes may start actively exploring objects without quite the same
prolonged monitoring of the caregivers' activities, motions, and sounds.
In order to imitate language, and to play with it and explore it,
(early 2 word strings are not strict imitations but well adopted
strategies
for maximally useful verbal routines, for instance, "all-gone daddy,"
"all-gone milk," "all-gone socks"), the infant does need to be interested
in adults and explore language as well as imitate it.
Thus, I think the distinction between imitation and emulation, while very
useful, is but part of diverse practices that verty young, and very
interdependent humans engage in. Co-regulation seems to be a nice
additional candidate
supported by studies of vocal and movement sunchrony in very young
infants.
Vera
---------------------------------
Vera P. John-Steiner
Department of Linguistics
Humanities Bldg. 526
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131
(505) 277-6353 or 277-4324
Internet: vygotsky who-is-at triton.unm.edu
---------------------------------