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Re: [xmca] Transhistorical or embodied



As Leopold pointed out, the notion of an 'inner form' to the word was being used in a variety of different ways in the 1920s. On the one hand, that implies that one might in principle be able to identify a major source for LSV's use of the idea, if this proved similar to one of the possible sources and not to the others. Arguing against this possibility, however, is the fact that while Humboldt, Potebnya, Shpet and others were, variously, neo-Kantian, neo-Platonic, or Orthodox Christian in their overall perspective, LSV was bringing a Marxist and materialist perspective to bear on the phenomenon of language, speech, and thinking.

Martin

On May 1, 2011, at 9:01 PM, Martin Packer wrote:

> Hi Natalia,
> 
> Just a quick response - I think you're mixing 'inner speech' with 'inner form.' Two quite different things, IMHO.
> 
> Martin
> 
> On May 1, 2011, at 8:30 PM, Natalia Gajdamaschko wrote:
> 
>> And, Luria also said that once Vygotsky argued that thought and word develop in opposite directions and thus are in constant dialectical contradictions (thought develops from whole to the part while the word develops from the part to whole, ch.7) and introduced the idea of lack of correspondence between the grammatical subject and predicate, he was forced to come up with this new component (inner speech) to explain the whole process.
>> 
>> According to Luria: 
>> 
>> “ This forced Vygotsky to introduce new component into the process of thought which thought is formed in the developed expression, a component of great significance to this process. This component was inner speech or the inner word. 
>> Abbreviated and amorphous in structure, predicative in function, this inner speech contains the potential for making thought more precise and materializing it – for bringing it to its full, developed expression.”  ( Luria, A.R.  Afterward, p. 368 in The Collected Works of L.S. Vygotsky, Vol. 1).
>> 
>> I agree with Martin, hardly we can point to only one source.  It seems that at least in the quote above Luria stressed that LSV was "forced" to look for a notion of "inner word"/"inner speech" only AFTER he discovered the need to overcome the contradiction in development of his unit of analysis (word meaning) And that LSV was mostly coming from the "thought" as a starting point here. It almost reads as if Luria noticed that Vygotsky "invented" inner speech notion thinking more as a psychologist as less as anthropological linguist or philologist.  No?  
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> Natalia. 
>> 
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Martin Packer" <packer@duq.edu>
>> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
>> Sent: Sunday, May 1, 2011 6:03:29 PM
>> Subject: Re: [xmca] Transhistorical or embodied
>> 
>> OK, but Hardcastle notes the similarities between LSV's position on language and thought and texts by von Humboldt.
>> 
>> Hardcastle, John(2009). Vygotsky's Enlightenment precursors. Educational Review, 61:2,181 — 195
>> 
>> And MacDonald points out that LSV attended Shpet's lectures on von Humboldt's treatment of the topic of inner form.
>> 
>> MacDonald, Paul (2000) Phenomenological factors in Vygotsky's mature psychology.  History of the Human Sciences; 13; 69
>> 
>> I doubt if we can single out one real source among these various influences.
>> 
>> Martin
>> 
>> On May 1, 2011, at 7:25 PM, David Kellogg wrote:
>> 
>>> Martin: 
>>> 
>>> What makes me think that Vygotsky got "inner form" from Potebnya?
>>> 
>>> Well, first of all, Yaroshevsky says so. On p. 36 he says that Vygotsky had read Potebnya by age 17 and that his Humboldtian ideas on inner and outer form derive from there (p. 77). Since the original was published in 1862 and Vygotsky was preturnaturally erudite in this field, it seems likely, although Yaroshevsky does not offer any evidence.
>>> 
>>> Yaroshevsky, M. (1989). Lev Vygotsky. Moscow: Progress.
>>> 
>>> Secondly, Zinchenko says so. On p. 232 of his article in the Cambridge Companion, he says that Vygotsky got the idea from Potebnya and not from von Humboldt or Shpet. (But Zinchenko also says that the ref on p. 31 of Psychology of Art is Vygotsky's ONLY ref to to "inner form" and we know that's not true.)
>>> 
>>> Zinchenko, V.P. (2007) Thought and Word: The approaches of L.S. Vygotsky and G.G. Spet. In Cambridge Companion to Vygotsky. Cambridge: CUP.
>>> 
>>> Thirdly, Thomas Seifrid says, on p. 99 of "The Word Made Self" that Potebnia got the distinction from Humboldt but that von Humboldt, always the anthropological linguist, applied it to sociogenetic changes in the language as a whole, while Potebnia, the philologist, applied it to the distinction between phoneme (outer form) and sememe (inner form). And that's how Vygotsky uses it, no?
>>> 
>>> Seifrid, T. (2005 ) The Word Made Self: Russian writings on language 1860-1930. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
>>> 
>>> David Kellogg
>>> Seoul National University Press
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> --- On Sun, 5/1/11, Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu> wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> From: Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>
>>> Subject: Re: [xmca] Transhistorical or embodied
>>> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
>>> Date: Sunday, May 1, 2011, 8:08 AM
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On May 1, 2011, at 7:26 AM, David Kellogg wrote:
>>> 
>>>> It turns out that Potebnia was the real source of Vygotsky's ideas about "inner form".
>>> 
>>> What leads you to this conclusion, David?
>>> 
>>> Martin__________________________________________
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