HCC class lecture 4 comments John Canny 1/31/05

Administrivia

Vygotsky - bio Early life was extraordinary – mastered fine arts, especially literature, philosophy, art and law. This continued throughout his life. Later he worked closely with Eisenstein (film), and Stanislawsky (method acting) in his work on “defectology”. Very much a “pragmatist” in philosophy. Well acquainted with the works of the American pragmatists: Peirce and William James. He applied his ideas to the practice of education, etc.

Vygotsky - bio 1917: The year of the first post-revolutionary “provisional government” in Russia, which abolished the death penalty and fought for civil liberties - overthrown by the Bolsheviks. Vygotsky takes on several critical social challenges: Education: Much of the country is un-schooled and illiterate Mental health: There are no institutions to deal with mental health problems, esp. in children. Language: How to unite a country that has dozens of former national languages.

Vygotsky - bio He starts to develop theories of development and language based on Marxist principles – emphasizing the role of social forces and history on the individual. Vygotsky recruits some extraordinary students: Luria does pioneering work in cultural and neuro-psychology Leont’ev develops “Activity theory”.

Genetic domains Marx emphasized understanding of social phenomena through their history and (social, political) context. Vygotsky considered “history” on 4 planes: Ontogenesis: Psychological development of the individual. Socio-historical: Development of cultural practices in a society. Micro-genesis: Development of single competencies. Phylogenesis: Evolution of the human species. His main contribution was the mutual influence of the first two.

ZPD The Zone of Proximal Development: the set of tasks the child can do with help from a more advanced peer or adult. Children learn rapidly here.

Mediation Vygotsky paid much attention to “mediation” – children’s use of tools to achieve a task. His perspective is very close to a “phenomenological” one. He also treated language as a mediational tool. This is very consistent with Piaget’s findings.

Internalization Vygotsky’s viewed development as starting on the social (or socio-historical) plane and moving to the psychological plane (individual development). Language is first encountered by the child in the social plane, but is gradually “internalized” as the child master’s new concepts. This process is also called “appropriation” (Rogoff).

Self-regulation and private speech Private speech is a fascinating phenomenon in young children in which they spontaneously voice commands, descriptions and reminders to themselves. In Vygotsky’s hands, private speech is a powerful clue to the linguistic character of human thought.

Discussion topic 1 Can you think of examples where you have used “private speech” for a new task? More generally, how much of your own thought is explicitly linguistic? Is it difficult to answer this question? If so, why?

Discussion topic 2 Discuss the proposition “language is a tool”? What are some differences and similarities between language and other types of tool?

Discussion topics 1.Can you think of examples where you have used “private speech” for a new task? More generally, how much of your own thought is explicitly linguistic? 2.Discuss the proposition “language is a tool”? What are some differences and similarities between language and other types of tool?

Reading for next time James Wertsch’s introduction to Vygotsky. More complete but more challenging that this reading. Volunteer?