Re: [xmca] Seeking help with Vygotsky translation

[Wolff-Michael Roth <mroth@uvic.ca>]

David,
I don't read Russian, but when I explored different translations of Leont'ev into German and English, I noted the following, which I wrote in a footnote to a paper on the Leont'ev/Holzkamp approach:

There are other difficulties with the English translation, for example, when it does not make the distinction between “социально” and “общественно,” which are rendered in the German translation as “sozial” and “gesellschaftlich,” but as “social” in the English translation rather than in terms of the corresponding “social” and “societal.”

It seems that Anglo-Saxon's prefer the stem "social" rather than "societal" (gesellschaftlich) that one would find in German. There may be a bias to have social relations when in fact the relations are societal (as Holzkamp and the members of his group would translate from the Russian).

Michael


On 2009-11-20, at 10:32 PM, David Kellogg wrote:

I'm kind of lost here (on p. 48 of Chapter One in the Minick version). Vygotsky says that "oбщение" requires a system of means of which the prototype has been, is, and always will be human language which is born from the needs of human beings to communicate in labor.
 
Seve translates "oбщение" as "communication", Meccaci as "social relations". It seems to me that Minick's translation "social interaction" is a very reasonable compromise, particularly since my dictionary says something like "contact".
 
So then Vygotsky has this:
 
Полагали, что средством общения является знак, слово, звук. 
 
I translate that as "It was assumed that the means of contact was the sign, the word, the sound itself". 
 
Minick has "In particular, it has been assumed that sign, word, and sound are the means of social interaction." 
 
Seve has "It was thought that the sign--the word, the sound--is a means of communication."
 
Meccaci: "It was thought that the sign, the word, the sound made up the means of social relations."
 
Now I'm assuming that this is an attack on the ASSOCIATIONIST theory of word meaning. Vygotsky says that it is not the sound itself (as behaviorists think) or the word itself (as Saussureans think) or even the sign itself (as Trubetzkoy, the formalists and the Prague school think); it's the underlying act of thinking, which in turn reflects underlying acts of labor, which provide the means of communication, social relations, contact. 
 
So far so good! But then...
 
Слово в общении главным образом только внешняя сторона речи, причем предполагалось, что звук сам по себе способен ассоциироваться с любым переживанием, с любым содержанием психической жизни и в силу этого передавать или сообщать это содержание или это переживание другому человеку. 
 
Seve says that this means "In communication, the word is essentially nothing but the exterior aspect of language, but it was nevertheless supposed that the sound in itself can be associated to any sort of lived experience, to any kind of content in psychological life, and can therefore transmit or communicate this content or this experience to another."
 
Meccaci: "The word in social relations is nothing more in the first instance than the external aspect of speech, but at the same time it was thought that the sound in itself could be associated to any lived experience, to any content of psychical life and in virtue of this it might transmit or communicate this content or this experience to another individual."
 
But my own reading is much closer to what Minick says: it has been assumed (by others) that the word in communication is just the external aspect of speech (that is, it's nothing but a sign, a word, a sound, and not an underlying act of generalization that can develop). And besides (or moreover) it was also thought (by others) that any sound could go with any lived experience, any old content of the mind and communicate it to others. Both of these ideas (that is, the idea that the word in communication is nothing but an object and not an underlying act of thinking and the associationist idea of anything with anything) are the product of over-analysis, that is, analysis into elements and not units, 
 
Who is right? Is it assumed by others or assumed by Vygotsky that the word is just the external aspect of speech? Is the second proposition going to begin with "nevertheless" or  "and besides"?
 
David Kellogg
Seoul National University of Education
 


--- On Thu, 11/19/09, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:


From: mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [xmca] Seeking help with Vygotsky translation
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Cc: "Alex Kozulin" <alexk@icelp.org.il>
Date: Thursday, November 19, 2009, 7:55 PM


David-

Speaking only to the first paragraph. I am almost certainly in my content as
my spelling and typing, but I doubt that I said that the Minnick version was
done in a hurry. What is true is that members of LCHC spent one year of LCHC
lab time (when Jim Wertsch was here on the faculty and working with us)
reading the translation, debating use of terms, and struggling, as you are
now, to understand what we were reading.

My understanding the Kozulin translation is that only the parts deleted from
the manuscript made available (by whom? Luria? to whom? Bruner?:) were
changed in the translation but I have never taken the time to find out. I
will cc Alex, who certainly has to know the true state of those affairs.
mike

2009/11/19 David Kellogg <vaughndogblack@yahoo.com>

> Yes, Minick is vastly superior! But Mike says that the Minick translation
> was done in a hurry (I think in a little over a year) and I think it shows.
> We've been working on our translation (into Korean) for well over a year
> now, and I would say we are really only about half finished (we have a
> working text, but about half of it is heavily based on Minick's reading and
> we have to go over it again with the Russian).
> 
> Here's an example I was working on this morning. Minick's got this:
> 
> "The methods we intend to apply in our investigation of the relationshiop
> betweent hinking and speech permit a synthetic analysis of the complex
> whole. The significance of this approach is illustrated by yet another
> aspect of hte problem, one that has remained in the background in previous
> research. Specifically, the initial and the primary function of speech is
> communicative. Speech is a _means of social interaction_ a means of
> expression and understanding. The mode of analysis that decmoposes the whole
> into its elements divorces the communicative function of speech from its
> intellectual function. Of course, it is generally accepted that speech
> combines the function of social interaction and the function of thinking,
> but these functions have been conceptualized as existing in isolation from
> one another, (sic) they have been conceptualized as operating in parallel
> with no mutual interdependence. It has always been understood that both
> functions are
>   somehow combined in speech. But traditional psychology left entirely
> unexplored issues such as the relationship between these functions, the
> reason that both are present in speech, the nature of their development and
> the nature of their structural relationship. This is largely true of
> contemporary psychology as well." (p. 48)
> 
> Even if you have very poor Russian (as I do) you can take the Russian
> version (attached) and plug it into Babelfish. Then you compare it with the
> French or Italian or the Japanese version, and you can rewrite the babble
> you get out of Babelfish. Here's what you get:
> 
> "The methods which we intend to apply to the study of the relations between
> thinking and the speech have the advantage that they make it possible to
> connect all the merits inherent to analysis with the possibility of a
> synthetic study of the properties inherent in any complex unity as such. We
> can easily be convinced of this on the basis of an example from an
> additional side of the problem which interests which too has always remained
> in the shadow. The initial function of speech appears to be its
> communicative function. Speech is, first of all, a means of social contact,
> a means of expression and understanding. In the analysis which decomposes
> into elements, this function of speech is also usually torn off from
> intellectual functioning, and both functions were assigned to speech as if
> in parallel and independent one from one another. Speech somehow combines in
> itself all the functions of social contact and the function of thinking, but
> what relation
>   these two functions stand to each other, what causes the presence of both
> functions in speech, how their development occurs and how they are
> structurally united the one to the other, all this has remained and remains,
> until now, not studied."
> 
> Now, it seems to me that there are at least four differences here. First of
> all, Minick's version leaves out the phrase on the advantages of analysis so
> that the whole paragraph is really just about synthesizing the intellectual
> and communicative functions of speech, This destroys the transition Vygotsky
> wants to make between synthesizing the intellectual and communicative
> functions of speech on the one hand and analyzing into the basic unit of
> thinking on the other.
> 
> Secondly, because Minick leaves out the phrase on the advantages of
> analysis, he cannot include the reference to it (“We can easily be convinced
> of this”) in the next sentence.
> 
> Thirdly, Minick uses “divorce” instead of “decompose”. But “decomposing” is
> exactly what Vygotsky means by “analysis”: he means taking a whole apart
> into its component basic units. Mike has pointed out that Vygotsky was
> heavily influenced by the Gestalt psychologists, and of course, we can see
> in this in Vygotsky’s concern in a form of analysis that “decomposes,”
> leaving the basic unit whole. But there is a negative influence as well:
> Vygotsky’s desire to DIFFERENTIATE himself from Gestalt. Vygotsky’s whole
> distinction between higher and lower psychological functions is not, in
> general, recognized in Gestalt psychology, so they do not see eye to eye on
> the psychological nature of word meaning at all.
> 
> Fourthly, Minick adds a contrast between “traditional” and “contemporary”
> psychology at the end of the paragraph. This presumably means introspective
> vs. behaviorist, or perhaps Wundt vs. Wurzburg, or even all previous schools
> of psychology vs. Gestalt. Of course, it’s probably very true that none of
> these schools have really posed the problem the way Vygotsky has, by showing
> that the social communicative functions of speech and the reflective,
> inter-mental functions turn in parallel because they are internally linked,
> by the axle of word meaning, and not simply because they are going over the
> same ground independently of each other. But the original paragraph does not
> appear to say this.
> 
> So what do we gain by avoiding originality? I think we gain the original
> emphasis on LINKING analysis into units with the synthesizing of the
> intellectual and the social functions of speech (Habermas would say
> teleological rationality with communicative rationality). Just as Marx’s
> study of the commodity makes it possible to see how exchange value and use
> value stand in relation to each other, how their development occurs, and how
> they are united to each other, linking analysis into units and functional
> synthesis will allow us to see how the intellectual function of thinking and
> the communicative functions of speech stand in relation to each other, how
> their development comes about, and how they are mutually defining.
> 
> I think taken together these differences are at least as important as the
> ones that Julia Gillen found in comparing the then new Minick translation
> with the Kozulin version back in 2000 (See "Versions of Vygotsky", in the
> British Journal of Education). Gillen argued that this new translation was
> going to make for a completely new understanding of Vygotsky, something that
> Mike also suggests in his editorial.
> 
> That might have been a little overoptimistic. But perhaps it isn't now.
> What we really need is to make the translation of this great work
> inter-individual and inter-generational, so that we can add on to Minick
> just as Minick added on to Hanfmann and Vakar, and just as Mike is adding on
> to whoever originally translated "Interaction between obuchenie and
> development" into Chapter Six of "Mind in Society".
> 
> Of course, there's copyright. I gather that the reason why Kozulin was not
> able to completely retranslate Thinking and Speech is that MIT actually OWNS
> the rights to the English translation of Thinking and Speech, and they don't
> want that to happen, presumably because they've already paid for it and they
> don't intend to sink anymore money down that particular rathole.
> 
> I'm not sure how Plenum got around this. I suppose they bought the rights
> to the Russian Collected Works as a whole from VAAP, and this included
> Thinking and Speech, but only in the 1982 version which appears in the
> Russian Collected Works.
> 
> Now, I wonder how this changes with the seventy-fifth anniversary of our
> beloved teacher's death (last June). I think that Western copyright laws are
> generally interpreted to mean that seventy-five years after the death of an
> author the whole of their work passes into the public domain. Let's suppose
> that the rights to translation of a copyrighted work don't actually outlive
> the original copyright (although apparently the NYPD still arrests gay men
> for publically soliciting sex even though the sex itself is now
> legal!). That means that it might be legal to retranslate Thinking and
> Speech into English now, starting from the 1934 edition which Vygotsky
> himself supervised and slavishly avoiding any form of originality as best we
> can. Like many things in life though, I think that it's worth doing even if
> it's not particularly legal.
> 
> David Kellogg
> Seoul National University of Education
> 
> 
> --- On Thu, 11/19/09, Jonathan Tudge JRTUDGE <jrtudge@uncg.edu> wrote:
> 
> 
> From: Jonathan Tudge JRTUDGE <jrtudge@uncg.edu>
> Subject: Re: [xmca] Seeking help with Vygtosky's translation
> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Date: Thursday, November 19, 2009, 12:23 PM
> 
> 
> Hi, Artin and David,
> 
> My knowledge of Russian never was that great, and now has rusted
> considerably, but I've compared the two versions that you mentioned
> initially, Artin, with the original Russian.  As you, David, showed
> clearly with the two translations that you supplied, the English version
> from the 1987 Plenum publication is far far closer to the original Russian
> than is the 1962 version.  In fact, I've always treated the 1962 text as
> an extended summary of the original, rather than as a translation per se,
> because it leaves out whole sections of the original and paraphrases other
> sections.  From what I remember, the 1986 expanded version, revised by
> Kozulin, is closer to the original than is the 1962 version, but is
> nowhere near as accurate as is the 1987 text.
> 
> Jon
> 
> PS...David, we must be showing our age if we both experienced that little
> bit of child torture!
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Jonathan Tudge
> Professor
> 155 Stone
> 
> Mailing address:
> 248 Stone Building
> Department of Human Development and Family Studies
> PO Box 26170
> The University of North Carolina at Greensboro
> Greensboro, NC 27402-6170
> USA
> 
> phone (336) 256-0131
> fax   (336) 334-5076
> 
> http://www.uncg.edu/hdf/facultystaff/Tudge/Tudge.html
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> "Goncu, Artin" <goncu@uic.edu>
> Sent by: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
> 11/19/2009 12:05 AM
> Please respond to
> "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> 
> 
> To
> "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> cc
> 
> Subject
> Re: [xmca] Seeking help with Vygtosky's translation
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 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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