XMCA Mail 2007_01: RE: [xmca] Translating Vygotsky

I am a Russian speaker, but it doesn't make the task of translation of "perezhivanie" easier. I've been struggling for years to find a meaningful English translation for Vygotskian very important concept of "novoobrazovaniye", i.e. new formation in the psyche , newly formed higher psychological function that transformed the previous psychological functions as well as their connections in the consciousness of an acting subject...if anyone has a word for it, I would appreciate...Maybe there is something challenging with translation into English of Russian gerund type nouns that reflect a process of transformation and do not point to the result or end.

I guess, the challenge is to grasp conceptual meanings in translation rather than to have a direct translation of the word. As for "perezhivanie," as far as I understand, for Vygotsky it was a unit of analysis for the study of person and environment. I do not have an English translation, but in his Pedology of Adolescent, Vygotsky names "perezhivanie" to be a unit that helps to avoid the dualism of individual and environment. According to Bozhovich, for a short period of time Vygotsky considered "perezhivanie" as the unit of psychological development in the study of the social situation of development. Moreover, I do not know whether it was included in the English translation, but in the last three pages of Pedology of Adolescent, he discusses "perezhivanie' as a dynamic unit of consciousness that allows to explore the attributes of consciousness in their connection, while he considered memory, thinking, etc., to be the elements. "Perezhivanie " is often discussed in relation to emotion, but it seems that for Vygotsky it is much more than emotional experience. The word itself for a Russian speaker, does not sound as a term, it can be easily used in poetry. I do not mind "experience" in Dewean sense, but "perezhivanie" is rather a reflection of the experience, the internal both emotional and cognitive process in child's consciousness that is a transformational for future development.

Elina Lampert-Shepel, Ed.D..
Assistant Professor
Graduate School of Education
Mercy College New Teacher Residency Program
Mercy College
66 West 35th Street
New York, NY 10001
(212) 615 3367

I have on my table a violin string. It is free. I twist one end of
it and it responds. It is free. But it is not free to do what a
violin string is supposed to do - to produce music. So I take it,
fix it in my violin and tighten it until it is taut. Only then it
is free to be a violin string.
Sir Rabindranath Tagore.

In Serbo-Croatian there are also two expressions - somewhat similar to
the Russian ones:
DOZHIVLYAY AND ISKUSTVO

Silvio Marquardt wrote:
> Dear friends,
>
> I think that Romanic languages could also help in handling the Russian concept:
>
> PEREZHIVANIE and OPIT (Russian)
> ERLEBNIS and ERFAHRUNG (German)
> VIVENCIA and EXPERIENCIA (Portuguese/Spanish)
>
> Regards
>
> Silvio
>
>
>
> Leif Strandberg <leifstrandberg.ab@telia.com> wrote: Hi
>
> I am not at Russian speaker (or reader)
>
> Da i
>
> to me the word-meaning of perezhivania sounds and look very much Karl
> Marx. In "German Ideology" Marx writes over and over again how
>
> "What" and "how" are dialectically connected
>
> How we "really" are
>
> (I do not have the English version - only the Swedish - so I am sure I
> have translated Marx wrong here -
>
> da i
>
> I recommend German Ideology
>
> Leif
>
>
>
>
>
> 2007-01-15 kl. 05.57 skrev Mike Cole:
>
>
>> Catherine, Sonja et al-
>>
>> Serendipitously I was reading LSV on the problem of the environment
>> which is
>> discussed in a chapter so entitled by van der veer and valsiner
>> in The Vygotsky Reader. They have a long footnote about "perezhivanie"
>> on
>> p. 354. They use the term "emotional experience" as a translation
>> but say it is not adequate, contrasting it with interpretation which
>> they
>> also say is not adequate, and say that it is very like the German term
>> "erleben" as Volker surmised.
>>
>> Vasiliuk who wrote a book about perezhivanie that is translated into
>> English
>> uses Doestoevsky for most of his examples. That should cue
>> you to the emotional ladeness of the term! And, apropos of other local
>> discussions, to the fact that separating cognition and emotion is
>> not indigenously Russian, and is in fact antithetical to the Russian
>> lexicon, the source of lots of intercultural non-understandings.
>>
>> You can get some feel for the prefix "pere" if you think of the word
>> "pere-stroika." It indexes a process of getting through some
>> experience, or
>> reliving an experience, or re-building. I am sure that some of the
>> Russians
>> who lurk in this neighborhood can help us peredumat' ( think over
>> again)
>> about this very interesting and complex semantic field.
>> mike
>>
>> On 1/14/07, Cathrene Connery wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Sonja and everyone,
>>> Thanks for your translation of perezhivanie and the corresponding
>>> reference. After reading Vygotsky's writings on the topic, I have
>>> used the
>>> terminology "lived experience" and felt it insufficiently represented
>>> the
>>> transactive dimension of the concept. "Lived-through" accounts for
>>> human
>>> agency as well as the dialectic between the interpersonal &
>>> intrapersonal
>>> experience. Interestingly, I have met native Russian speakers who
>>> were not
>>> familiar with the term, although it might have been reflective of
>>> their own
>>> funds of knowledge.
>>> Have a nice day!
>>> Cathrene
>>>
>>>
>>> M. Cathrene Connery, Ph.D.
>>> Assistant Professor of Bilingual & TESL Education
>>> Central Washington University
>>>
>>>
>>>>>> Sonja Baumer 1/14/2007 2:30 PM >>>
>>>>>>
>>> hi cathrene and others,
>>> here is my response to your question about the translation of
>>> PEREZHIVANIE into english:
>>> in our previous work (see baumer et al, 2005) we translated
>>> perezhivanie as LIVED-THROUGH EXPERIENCE. the translation is
>>> necessarily descriptive as we could not find english word that would
>>> allow us to distinguish between PEREZHIVANIE and OPIT -- both of which
>>> are translated in english as EXPERIENCE.
>>> If u r a german speaker, a parallel distinction in german can be made
>>> between ERLEBNIS and ERFAHRUNG.
>>> i am not so fluent in german and russian, but the distinction seemed
>>> important to me, especially after reading stanislavski who also wrote
>>> about PEREZHIVANIE. let us know what your friends with more expertise
>>> in german and/or russian than myself had to say about that :-)
>>> sonja
>>>
>>> On 1/12/07, Cathrene Connery wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi Volker and everyone:
>>>> Thanks for taking the time to provide us with quotes regarding the
>>>>
>>> dialectical nature of the ZPD from the German translation you referred
>>> to. While I am not fluent in German, I have some friends that are
>>> and will
>>> call on their expertise to help translate the text you quoted.
>>>
>>>> The issue of translation can make a huge difference in our
>>>>
>>> transaction
>>> with and interpretation of Vygotsky's writings. I have struggled
>>> especially
>>> with the concept of perezhivanie / perezhivanija. Would anyone like
>>> to take
>>> a stab at this one?
>>>
>>>> Gratefully,
>>>> Cathrene
>>>>
>>>> M. Cathrene Connery, Ph.D.
>>>> Assistant Professor of Bilingual & TESL Education
>>>> Central Washington University
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>> "Volker.hippie" 1/11/2007 2:44 AM
>>>>>>>
>>>> Dear Cathrine, in "Denken und Sprechen", translated by Lompscher and
>>>> Rückriem, I felt in love with the term, on page 253: "Aus dieser
>>>> specifischen Zusammenarbeit zwischen Kind und Erwachsenem, die ...
>>>>
>>> das
>>>
>>>> zentrale Moment im Bildungsproces darstellt, erklärt sich die frühe
>>>> Reifung wissenschaftlicher Begriffe sowie der Umstand, dass ihr
>>>> Entwicklungsniveau als *Zone der nächsten Möglichkeiten (Zone for
>>>>
>>> next
>>>
>>>> possibilities) *hinsichtlich der Alltagsbegriffe wirkt, indem er
>>>>
>>> ihnen
>>>
>>>> als eine Art Propädeutik den Weg bahnt".
>>>>
>>>> Page 32: Um nachzuahmen, muss ich die Möglichkeit haben, von dem,
>>>>
>>> was
>>>
>>>> ich kann, zu dem überzugehen, was ich nicht kann.
>>>>
>>>> I would like to give you some more quotes, but first I have to ask,
>>>>
>>> -
>>>
>>>> are you able to read German? In a way it would not make meaning to
>>>> translate fx the term "Bildungsproces", because as I know they do
>>>>
>>> not
>>>
>>>> have a word for it, in English. "Bildung" is another one, of this
>>>>
>>> funny
>>>
>>>> words, where Bildung means to get educated, not only as we
>>>>
>>> understand to
>>>
>>>> learning, but, too, as socializing to a democratic human member of
>>>>
>>> the
>>>
>>>> world community.
>>>>
>>>> You could find the same passages in the translation by Kozulin,
>>>>
>>> 1986, or
>>>
>>>> Sevé, 1997, but for me , Lompscher/Rückriem (with the assistance of
>>>> Elena Kravtsova, Ghita Vygodskaya) have been able to translate the
>>>>
>>> words
>>>
>>>> by Vygotsky in a way, as they express in the start of the book,
>>>>
>>> closest
>>>
>>>> to the Russian original text. - I don't know if that is the
>>>>
>>> "really" the
>>>
>>>> case, ...
>>>>
>>>> Volker
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Cathrene Connery skrev:
>>>>
>>>>> Hi Volker,
>>>>> Thanks for the interesting comments. Is it possible to select a
>>>>>
>>> quote
>>> / selection regarding the ZPD from the text you mentioned and post it
>>> for
>>> the list serve?
>>>
>>>>> Feliz dia (Have a happy day),
>>>>> Cathrene
>>>>>
>>>>> M. Cathrene Connery, Ph.D.
>>>>> Assistant Professor of Bilingual & TESL Education
>>>>> Central Washington University
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>>> "Volker.hippie" 1/10/2007 8:59 AM
>>>>>>>>
>>>>> Yes, and the ZPD reminds me of the term Gibson used to describe
>>>>> perception in a way, which made it possible to bridge between the
>>>>> objective and subjective perception, which he named
>>>>>
>>> "/affordances/".
>>>
>>>>> and I agree with Armando, the ZPD is something between the
>>>>>
>>> individual
>>>
>>>>> and the other(s) - and it gets facilitated by common joint
>>>>>
>>> activities.
>>>
>>>>> But that does not mean, that I can not take what I learn in a ZPD
>>>>>
>>> with
>>>
>>>>> me, to others places, other and maybe even more developmental
>>>>>
>>> ZPD's.
>>>
>>>>> Just a thought, - that the real fantastic principles in
>>>>>
>>> psychology are
>>>
>>>>> not either/or individual/collective principles, but both, at the
>>>>>
>>> same
>>>
>>>>> time, in a dialectical way.
>>>>>
>>>>> It is therefore so wonderful to read Vygotsky - ´cause nobody
>>>>>
>>> has,
>>>
>>>>> IMHO, come up with a clearer description of the ZPD than made by
>>>>> Vygotsky in Denken und Sprechen, 2002, which is the translation by
>>>>> Lompscher et al. .
>>>>>
>>>>> Volker
>>>>>
>>>>> Armando Perez skrev:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> Eric: I dont like to look at ZPD as individual but as
>>>>>> a colective interperson al situation. This means that
>>>>>> ZPD do not belong to an individual but it is
>>>>>> constructed or co-constructed. I also work in
>>>>>> educational aplication of Vygotsky and I am tried to
>>>>>> unified the concept od ZPD and Social Situation odf
>>>>>> Development. What do you think about that
>>>>>> Armando
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
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