The following (which may have gotten slightly altered during copyediting)
is the source of my thinking on sense and meaning. The reference is:
Wertsch, J. V. (2000). Vygotsky's two minds on the nature of
meaning. In C. D. Lee & P. Smagorinsky (Eds.), Vygotskian perspectives on
literacy research: Constructing meaning through collaborative inquiry (pp.
19-30). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Meaning as Reference and Abstraction
Chapter 5, "An Experimental Study of Concept Development," is
primarily concerned with the transitions Vygotsky saw from "heaps" to
"complexes" to "pseudoconcepts" to "true concepts" as manifested in
subjects' performances on what came to be known as the "Vygotsky blocks"
task. This chapter, which was probably written sometime during the early
1930s, is based on research Vygotsky conducted with Sakharov (1930) in the
late 1920s. Chapter 6, "The Development of Scientific Concepts in
Childhood," was written for Thinking and Speech, which was published in
1934, the year of Vygotsky's death. In this chapter Vygotsky focused on
"scientific" concepts and contrasted them with "everyday" or "spontaneous"
concepts. As I have noted elsewhere (Wertsch, 1985), there are some
important differences between Vygotsky's notions of true, or genuine
concepts on the one hand, and scientific concepts on the other, but for my
present purposes I shall focus on two basic assumptions about meaning that run
throughout his account of both. These are the assumptions that: 1)
language meaning is a matter of referential relationships between signs and
objects (both linguistic and nonlinguistic objects), and 2) the development
of meaning is a matter of increasing generalization and abstraction.
With regard to the first of these points, Vygotsky criticized
other accounts of concept formation for overlooking the role of the sign
and the associated relationship between sign and object. He argued that in
such accounts "The role of the word or sign in the process of concept
formation is ignored" (p.122). In his view it was as if the sign,
especially as it plays a role in picking out objects (i.e., reference),
does not exist and
the development of concepts proceeds along an individual, nonsemiotic path.
In a related way he argued in Chapter 6 of Thinking and Speech that the
relationship between sign and object is fundamental to understanding how
children's spontaneous concepts differ from scientific concepts:
The birth of the spontaneous concept is usually associated with the child's
immediate encounter with things, things that are often explained by adults
but are nonetheless real things. . . . In contrast, the birth of the
scientific concept begins not with an immediate encounter with things, but
with a mediated relationship to the object. With the spontaneous concept,
the child moves from the thing to the concept. With the scientific
concept, he is forced to follow the opposite path--from the concept to the
thing. (1987, p.219)
Underlying all these claims is the assumption that language and meaning are
basically concerned with referential relationships between signs and objects.
Vygotsky's (1987) argument about the role of abstraction in the
development of word meaning expands upon this basic assumption. It
examines the process whereby signs can be used to refer to categories of
objects rather than to single items. The key to this process is
abstraction, or the "decontextualization of mediational means" (Wertsch,
1985, p. 33), which in turn relies on the existence of systems of
interrelationships among sign types. Vygotsky argued that
The key difference in the psychological nature of these two kinds of
concepts [scientific and everyday] is a function of the presence or absence
of a system. Concepts stand in a different relationship to the object when
they exist outside a system than when they enter one. The relationship of
the word "flower" to the object is completely different for the child who
does not yet know the words rose, violet, or lily than it is for the child
who does. Outside a system, the only possible connections between concepts
are those that exist between the objects themselves, that is, empirical
connections. . . . These relationships mediate the concept's relationship
to the object through its relationship to other concepts. A different
relationship between the concept and the object develops. Supra-empirical
connections between concepts become possible. (p.234)
In developing this line of reasoning Vygotsky stressed the role of systems
of signs. It is such systems that provide the key to the conscious
awareness, intellectualization, and volition associated with scientific
concepts:
Only within a system can the concept acquire consciousness awareness and a
voluntary nature. Conscious awareness and the presence of a system are
synonyms when we are speaking of concepts, just as spontaneity, lack of
conscious awareness, and the absence of a system are three different words
for designating the nature of the child's [everyday or spontaneous]
concept. (pp.191-192; emphasis in original)
Carried to its logical extreme, this principle of systematicity
suggests that mathematics would provide an ideal illustration of
abstraction, and indeed Vygotsky (1987) turned to mathematics in the
context of a discussion of the claim that "by its very nature, each concept
presupposes the presence of a certain system of concepts. Outside such a
system, it cannot exist" (p.224). One of the implications of this systemic
property is that concepts can be defined in accordance with the law of
concept equivalence, which in principle means that
any concept can be represented through other concepts in an infinite number
of ways. . . . Thus, the number one can be expressed as 1,000,000 minus
999,999 or, more generally, as the difference between any two adjacent
numbers. It can also be expressed as any number divided by itself or in an
infinite number of other ways. This is a pure example of the law of
concept equivalence. (pp. 226-227; emphasis in original)
This passage reveals the asymptote of development that Vygotsky
envisioned
when dealing with abstraction and the decontextualization of mediational
means. As such it also reveals a view of human nature that runs throughout
Chapters 5 and 6 of Thinking and Speech. In such a view, humans use, or
are at least capable of using systems of decontextualized word meanings and
hence of becoming abstract, rational thinkers. From this perspective
meaning is largely a matter of the relationship between semiotic
expressions such as words and sentences on the one hand, and a world of
objects on the other. Furthermore, it is an approach that claims that the
semiotic potential of decontextualization is what gives rise to abstraction
and what yields increasingly powerful ways to categorize, reflect on, and
control this world.
The picture of Vygotsky's account of meaning I have just sketched
runs throughout his writings on concept development and related issues of
abstract reasoning. In my view it reflects a side of Vygotsky that was
deeply committed to Enlightenment traditions of abstract rationality
(Wertsch, 1996a, 1996b). This commitment provided the foundation for the
efforts Vygotsky and his colleagues undertook as part of the first grand
socialist experiment in the form of the Soviet Union. To be sure, sharp
differences emerged among the various parties involved in this effort
(Zinchenko, 1995), but the fundamental tenets accepted by all included a
belief in some form of universal human rationality and a belief in the
possibility of progress toward such rationality.
Meaning as Contextualized, Personal Sense
The view of meaning I have just outlined and the philosophical
commitments associated with it stand in striking contrast to some of the
ideas and assumptions found elsewhere in Vygotsky's writings. The main
text I shall consider in presenting this alternative perspective is Chapter
7 of Thinking and Speech, but other texts such as The Psychology of Art
(1971) are revealing as well. To my knowledge, Vygotsky never explicitly
addressed how his account of meaning in Chapter 7 of Thinking and Speech
differs from that outlined in Chapters 5 and 6. Instead, he seems to have
shifted gears and moved from one perspective to another.
Vygotsky wrote, or rather largely dictated Chapter 7 of this
volume in the final months of his life. In it he concerned himself with
the relationship between "Thought and Word." In actuality, the terms
"thought" and "word" in this chapter reflect a more general opposition that
Vygotsky saw as operating between two semiotic potentials (Wertsch,
1985). "Word" can be taken as a cover term for the potential that language
has for the
kind of explicit, expanded, systemic, and decontextualized meaning and form
outlined in the previous section. "Thought," in contrast, can be taken as
a sort of cover term for the potential language has for abbreviated form
and for contextualized and personal meaning.
Throughout Chapter 7 Vygotsky examined these two general semiotic
potentials in terms of several more specific oppositions. For example, he
outlined a distinction between the "internal" and "external" form of the
word, a distinction that is prefigured in the ideas of one of his teachers,
Gustav Shpet (1927). This opposition is also manifested in the
distinctions Vygotsky drew between social and inner speech (with egocentric
speech serving as an intermediary), between written speech and inner
speech, and between sense (smysl) and meaning (znachenie).
In all these cases Vygotsky stressed that the two members of the
opposition were quite distinct with regard to form as well as function and
meaning. In general, he took "language," "social speech," "written
speech," the "phonetic" or "auditory" aspect of speech, the "grammatical"
categories of subject and predicate, and "meaning" to be associated with
explicit, systemically organized, decontextualized, social, expanded form,
whereas "thought," "inner speech," the "semantic" aspect of speech, the
"psychological" categories of subject and predicate, and "sense" were
viewed as being characterized by implicit, condensed, and highly
contextualized and abbreviated form and personal sense. In short, he
outlined a set of oppositions subsidiary to the general distinction between
word and thought.
Explicit, systematically Implicit, condensed,
organized form abbreviated form
language thought
external social speech inner speech
written speech inner speech
phonetic/auditory aspect of speech semantic aspect of
speech
grammatical subject and predicate psychological
subject and
predicate
meaning (znachenie) sense (smysl)
In Vygotsky's (1987) view the externality associated with the
first set of terms is tied to the fact that they are concerned with the
social, and hence public world, whereas the internality of the second set
of terms is tied to the fact that they are concerned with a private,
psychological world: "Inner speech is for oneself. External speech is
speech for others" (p. 257).
Some of Vygotsky's (1987) most interesting comments on the
oppositions I have outlined emerge in his discussion of the properties of
external and inner speech, and it is in this connection that he presented
his distinction between "meaning" (znachenie) and "sense" (smysl). It is
perhaps useful to note in this connection that for Vygotsky the Russian
znachenie, which is related to the verb znat (to know) served both as a
term standing in opposition to smysl and as a sort of unmarked,
superordinate term incorporating both meaning and sense:
A word's sense is the aggregate of all the psychological facts that arise
in our consciousness as a result of the word. Sense is a dynamic, fluid,
and complex formation which has several zones that vary in their stability.
. . . In different contexts, a word's sense changes. In contrast, meaning
is a comparatively fixed and stable point, one that remains constant with
all the changes of the word's sense that are associated with its use in
various contexts. . . . The actual meaning of a word is inconstant. In one
operation the word emerges with one meaning; in another, another is
acquired. (p. 276)
In outlining the distinction between meaning and sense in Chapter
7 of Thinking and Speech, Vygotsky was not saying that one term reflects
reality and the other reflects a mere figment of analysts' imagination or
that we should pay attention to one and ignore the other. Furthermore, he
clearly was not arguing that the members of these various oppositions could
be ranked in terms of some single, unifying hierarchy of
development. Although he formulated his account of conceptual functioning
in developmental terms, he did not view the highest form of such
functioning (i.e., the use of genuine concepts) as either more or less
advanced than inner speech functioning (Wertsch, 1996a, 1996b). Instead,
he assumed that the members of the various oppositions he outlined in
Chapter 7 of Thinking and Speech both play a role in human action and
mental life and hence deserve serious attention. In this respect his line
of reasoning reflects assumptions about heterogeneity in mental functioning
(Wertsch, 1991) and runs parallel to what Cassirer (1946) outlined when
analyzing how "theoretical" and "mythical" thinking co-exist and play
essential roles in human consciousness.
The one place where Vygotsky brought his notions of word and
thought into contact in such a way as to suggest a genetic hierarchy can be
found in his account of speech production in Chapter 7 of Thinking and
Speech. There he presented speech production as a microgenetic process
(Wertsch, 1985) of moving from motive and thought to external speech, and
in outlining this process he suggested one way in which some members of the
oppositions outlined above might be coordinated into a more comprehensive
picture. Specifically, he argued that speech production involves a
series of genetic transformations from condensed, abbreviated forms of
representation involving sense, psychological predicates, and so forth to
an explicit form of social speech with all its expanded phonetic and
auditory aspects, meaning, and so forth. This microgenetic process has
been examined in more detail by Luria (1981) and Akhutina (1975, 1978).
Vygotsky's comments on speech production are suggestive for how
poles of an opposition might be related through genetic analysis, but the
picture he came up with left some obvious problems unresolved. This lack
of resolution is particularly evident with regard to his account of inner
speech. In Chapter 7 he wrote extensively about the "semantic" and
"syntactic" properties of egocentric and inner speech, and these all had to
do with its condensed, abbreviated form and its grounding in sense (i.e.,
in contrast to meaning). However, even within the confines of this chapter
he seems to have had two different phenomena in mind. On the one hand he
invoked inner speech as one of the phases of the microgenetic process of
producing speech utterances, and on the other he argued that inner speech
serves as an instrument in problem solving and other forms of rational
thinking.
Leont'ev (1978) has distinguished these two notions of inner
speech as "inner speech in the strict sense" and "inner programming of an
utterance" (p.15). The former involves "the use of an inner-speech code to
solve some communicative (usually cognitive) task," whereas inner
programming concerns "the use of an inner-speech code to plan a speech
utterance (or, correspondingly, to retain its content in short-term memory,
to remember it as a reference point in translating from one language to
another, etc.)" (pp. 15-16). Although Vygotsky never articulated how these
two notions of inner speech might be distinct, their difference is obvious
for several reasons, the foremost being that "inner speech in the strict
sense" derives from internalizing social speech, but social speech could
not exist if it were not for the "inner programming of an utterance."
Hence, instead of expecting to find some neat resolution to this
inconsistency in Vygotsky's theoretical framework, I believe it must be
understood as reflecting an inherent tension, if not opposition in
Vygotsky's writings and, more generally, in the intellectual milieu in
which he lived and worked. In particular, I believe it reflects the
intellectual heritage of two grand traditions in the history of philosophy
that provide the intellectual context in which he, as well as the rest of
us, live in twentieth century. I have already mentioned one of these, the
Enlightenment. The other is Romanticism.
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