Re: [xmca] Seeking help with Vygtosky's translation

["Goncu, Artin" <goncu@uic.edu>]

David,

Thank you very much for your very helpful reply.  I do appreciate it.  All
the best, Artin


On Wed, November 18, 2009 4:42 pm, David Kellogg wrote:
> Greetings from Seoul, Professor Goncu, where your two books on play are
> often read and appreciated.
> Â 
> As Meccaci remarks (and van der Veer confirms), there is really no very
> good LITERAL translation of Thinking and Speech into English and there is
> never likely to be. Partly this is the fault of the overenthusiastic early
> translators but partly it is the fault of copyright laws which prevent the
> translation of this work from becoming, as would be really proper, an
> inter-individual and inter-generational enterprise.
> Â 
> Those who know other languages can rely on the excellent French
> translation by Seve or the BRILLIANT Italian translation by Meccaci
> himself. Here's what they have, retranslated into English by me:
> Â 
> Seve: It would be miraculous if the assimilation of a foreign language
> during the process of school learning was a replica, a reproduction of
> that of the mother tongue, which was carried out long ago and under
> completely different conditions. But these differences, however profound
> they may be, must not mask from us the fact that the two processes of
> assimilating the mother tongue and assimilating the foreign language have
> between them so many points in common that it appears that at bottom there
> is a single class of verbal development processes, to which the extremely
> original process of the development of written language also attaches
> itself, for this does not repeat any of the precedents but instead
> represents a new variation of a single unified process. What is more,
> these three processesâ??the assimilation of mother tongues and foreign
> tongues and the development of written languageâ??each exercise a complex
> action on the others, and this testifies
>  incontestably to their belonging to single and same class of genetic
> processes and to their internal unity. The assimilation of a foreign
> language is also, as we have said, an original process because it
> utilizes the whole of the semantic aspects of the mother tongue which are
> the result of a long development. The learning of the mother tongue is
> based therefore on the knowledge of the mother tongue. Less evident and
> less well known is the relationship of inverse dependence between these
> two processes: the foreign language exercises in reverse an influence
> upon the mother tongue of the child. Goethe understood this very well, he
> who said that one who does not know a foreign language does not really
> know his own. Research entirely confirms this idea of Goethe, because it
> shows that the mastery of a foreign language raises the mother tongue as
> well to a superior level in the sense that the child becomes aware of
> linguistic form, that he generalizes verbal
>  phenomena, that he utilizes more consciously and more volitionally the
> word as an instrument of thinking and as an expression of a concept. One
> can say that the assimilation of a foreign language raises the mother
> tongue to a superior level as much as the assimilation of algebra raises
> the level of arithmetic thinking to a superior level, because it permits
> the child to understand that all arithmetic operations are a particular
> case of algebraic operations, they give him a freer, more abstract, more
> generalized, and at the same time more profound insight into operations
> using concrete quantities. Just as algebra frees the thinking of the
> child from the hold which concrete numbers had upon it, in the same way,
> but by other paths, the assimilation of a foreign language frees his
> verbal thinking from the hold of forms and concrete linguistic phenomena.
> Â 
> Meccaci:Â It would be a miracle if the development of a foreign language
> during the course of instructed learning in school repeated or reproduced
> the course, made much earlier and in other conditions, of the development
> of the mother tongue. These differences, although profound, should not
> hide from us the fact that these two processes of the developing mother
> tongue and the foreign one have between them very much in common and are
> at bottom members of a single class of processes of verbal development,
> and, in addition, they are accompanied by the extremely original process
> of development of written language which does not repeat the preceding
> processes but represents a new variation in this unique process of
> linguistic development. What is more, these three processesâ??the
> development of the mother tongue and the foreign tongue and the
> development of written languageâ??are found in an extremely complex
> interaction which shows incontestably that they
>  belong to a single class of genetic processes which has an internal
> unity. As we have seen above, the development of a foreign language is an
> original process, because it uses the whole of the semantic aspects of
> the mother tongue, which are born during a prolonged process of
> development. The learning in school of a foreign language is based in
> some way upon the knowledge of the mother tongue. Less evident and less
> well noted is the reverse dependence between these two processes, which
> consists of the inverse influence of the foreign language on the mother
> tongue of the child. Nevertheless Goethe understood this very well when
> he said that oen who does not know any foreign language does not truly
> know his own. Research has completely confirmed this idea of Goetheâ??s,
> showing that the mastery of a foreign language raises the mother tongue
> to a higher stage, in the sense that the awareness of the forms of
> language, of the generalizations of the phenomena
>  of language, of the more voluntary and more conscious use of words as
> instruments of thinking and as expressions of concepts. If we may say so,
> the assimilation of a foreign language raises the level of the maternal
> language (rech) for the child as much as the assimilation of algebra
> raises to a higher level the childâ??s arithmetic thinking, because it
> permits the child to understand any arithmetical operation as a
> particular case of algebraic operations, furnishing the child a freer,
> more abstract, more generalized and at the same time more profound and
> rich view of operations on concrete quantitites. Just as algebra frees
> the thinking of the child from its dependence on concrete numbers and
> raises it to a higher level of more generalized thinking, in the same way
> the assimilation of a foreign language in completely diverse ways frees
> verbal thinking from the grip of concrete forms and concrete phenomena of
> language.
> Â 
>
> There is another very relevant passage in Chapter 6, section 5:
> Â 
> Seve: But between these two opposed paths there exists a reciprocal
> interdependence, just like that between the development of scientific
> concepts and spontaneous concepts. The conscious and intentional
> assimilation of a foreign language is, to all the best evidence, based on
> a certain level of development of the mother tongue. When the child
> assimilates a foreign tongue, he already has at his disposal from the
> mother tongue a system of significations which he transfers into the other
> language. But inversely as well, the assimilation of a foreign language
> breaks the trail for the mastery of the higher forms of the maternal
> language. It permits the child to conceive his mother tongue as a
> particular case of the linguistic system, and, as a result, gives him the
> possibility of generalizing the phenomena that are proper to it, which
> signifies also seizing conscious awareness of his proper verbal operations
> and mastering them. Just as algebra is an
>  generalization and therefore a seizure of conscious awareness of
> arithmetic operations and their mastery, the development of a foreign
> language on the basis of the mother tongue signifies a generalization of
> linguistic phenomena and a seizure of conscious awareness of verbal
> operations, that is to say their translation onto the higher plane of a
> language which has become conscious and volitional. It is precisely in
> this sense that we must understand the aphorism of Goethe: â??He who
> knows no foreign language does not at bottom understand his own.â??
> Â 
> Meccaci: But between these two roads which proceed in opposite directions,
> there exists a reciprocal interdependence, much like that between the
> development of scientific concepts and that of spontaneous concepts. This
> conscious and voluntary assimilation of a foreign language bases itself
> very evidently upon a certain level of development of the mother tongue.
> The child assimilates a foreign tongue because he has at his disposal a
> system of knowledge of the mother tongue and can transfer this into the
> sphere of the other language. Conversely, the assimilation of the foreign
> language opens the road to the mastery of the superior forms of the mother
> tongue. It permits the child to conceive of the mother tongue as a
> particular case of a language system and gives the possibility of
> generalizing the phenomena of the mother tongue; this means the seizure of
> conscious awareness of its proper verbal operations and mastering them. In
> the same way, algebra is a
>  generalization and therefore a seizure of consciousness of arithmetical
> operations and allows their mastery, so too the development of a foreign
> language on the base of the mother tongue signifies the generalization of
> the linguistic phenomena and the seizure of consciousness of verbal
> operations, in other words their translation to a higher level of
> conscious and volitional language. This is the real sense in which we
> must understand the maxim of Goethe: He who does not know any foreign
> language, does not really know his own language at bottom.â??
> Â 
>
> David Kellogg
>
> Seoul National University of Education
>
>
>
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>


Artin Goncu, Ph.D
Professor,
Educational Psychology
College of Education M/C 147
1040 W. Harrison St.
Chicago, IL 60607
http://education.uic.edu/epsy/browseour%20faculty.cfm
(312) 996-5259

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