[xmca] Dodgy Formulations

[David Kellogg <vaughndogblack@yahoo.com>]

I have three questions about "Tool and Symbol", which we are translating into Korean.
 
Question ONE (Collected Works, Volume Six, p. 13). Vygotsky and Luria write this about Kohler's ape experiments:
 
В классическом исследовании использования орудий обезьянами В. Келер наблюдал форму поведения, которая может быть названа чистой культурой практического интеллекта, достаточно развитой, но не связанной с использованием символа. 
 
I gather that чистой культурой практического интеллекта means something like a "pure culture of practical intellect", which is what both Hall and the Vygotsky Reader have. But in the context it seems to me that what LSV and ARL are really saying is that it is a practical intellect which has been cleaned or purified of all culture, that is, one that has only a natural history and no cultural history at all.
 
Question TWO (Collected Works p. 15):
 
LSV and ARL write this:
 
С генетической точки зрения мы склонны представлять общую последовательность основных ступеней развития речи так, как это формулируется, например, Д. Уотсоном: внешняя речь . шепот . внутренняя речь или, иначе говоря: внешняя речь . эгоцентрическая речь . внутренняя речь. 
 
That is, LSV and ARL are giving the history of speech as external speech-->whispering-->inner speech "иначе говоря" external speech-->egocentric speech-->inner speech. 
 
I gather that  иначе говоря means something like "in other words", or "that is to say". But this is simply IMPOSSIBLE. How could LSV and ARL equate whispering with egocentric speech? They are functionally and structurally utterly different. 
 
Is it reasonable to use иначе говоря here just to indicate that they are both stuck in the middle, and to call being stuck in the middle begin part of a genetic sequence? This just can't be right.
 
Question THREE (p. 14):
 
LSV and ARL are discussing the difference between the way a child solves a banana-and-stick problem with speech, and the way an ape solves the same problem. I am already somewhat uncomfortable with the whole discussion, because although LSV and ARL present this as the most important genetic point in the whole of the child's development, they are doing it fetishistically, as a matter of substituting a sign for a tool, rather than talking about what the sign really represents (viz. empathy, a theory of mind, collaboration, cooperation). They write this:
 
С того момента, как ребенок с помощью речи начинает овладевать ситуацией, предварительно овладев собственным поведением, возникают радикально новая организация поведения, а также новые отношения со средой.  (“From that moment on, as the child begins to grasp the situation with the aid of the speech, having first mastered his own behavior,  a radically new organization of behavior appears, alongside a new relationship with the environment.”)
 
What am I to make of this? It looks to me like LSV and ARL have the child mastering his own behavior BEFORE the child has grasped the situation. In other words, inner speech before egocentric speech, and egocentric speech before social speech. How is this different from the position of Piaget?
 
David Kellogg
Seoul National University of Education 
 
 
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