Meditations on Mediation Universitetet i Oslo May 2004 James V. Wertsch Washington University in St. Louis

Mediation: Starting Points Human action, including mental processes Human action, including mental processes –Almost always mediated  Humans don’t act in a direct, immediate way on social and physical world  Humans use tools and signs  Humans as tool-using animals –Especially, humans as “story telling” animals (MacIntyre)

Mediation: Starting Points Cultural tools are situated: Cultural tools are situated: –Historically –Culturally –Institutionally Sociocultural situatedness of cultural tools => Sociocultural situatedness of human action Sociocultural situatedness of cultural tools => Sociocultural situatedness of human action

Vygotsky on Mediation “A central fact of our psychology is the fact of mediation” (oposredovanie) (1933) - Russian oposredovanie - root: credstvo = means, resources

Vygotsky on Mediation Lifelong concern, e.g., “The Instrumental Method in Psychology” (1930) Signs are “artificial formations... [that] are social, not organic or individual” [including] “language; various systems for counting; mnemonic techniques; algebraic symbol systems; works of art; writing; schemes, diagrams, maps, and mechanical drawings; all sorts of conventional signs”

Vygotsky on Mediation Signs (i.e., “cultural tools”): - “artificial”: “not natural or part of the “natural line of development,” i.e., “not organic” - “social” and “not individual”: not independently invented, but socioculturally situated, derivative of social processes

Vygotsky: 2 Views on Mediation Views reflect different: Views reflect different: – Audiences to whom is remarks were directed – Professional “social languages”  Psychology and physiology of his day vs. Poetics and semiotic analysis

2 Views on Mediation 1. “Explicit mediation” - Overt, intentional introduction of a “stimulus means” into the flow of action - Materiality of mediational means is obvious and non-transitory

Explicit Mediation Vygotsky: Leont’ev’s “Forbidden Colors Task” Vygotsky: Leont’ev’s “Forbidden Colors Task” In contemporary cognitive science: In contemporary cognitive science: –Hutchins’s “Sociotechnical systems” used to regulate system - “How a Cockpit Remembers Its Speed”

2. Implicit Mediation –Vygotsky: egocentric and inner speech  Signs are more “transparent” –Appear to be more fleeting and ephemeral –Less accessible to conscious reflection –But in actuality, signs are still material  Signs already function in communication –Not artificially created and introduced into problem solving or cognitive action –Signs evolve, are not designed  Heavy influence of Gustav Gustavovich Shpet and Humboldt

Benveniste on Explicit vs. Implicit Mediation The pick, the arrow, and the wheel are not in nature. They are fabrications. Language is in the nature of man, and he does not prefabricate it... It is in and through language that man constitutes himself as a subject

Explicit Mediation Forbidden Colors Task Forbidden Colors Task –Memory with and without external stimulus means –5-6-year-olds: signs not understood or used  No function or efficacy of signs  Children saw no connection to memory task –10-13-year-olds: signs helped performance

Forbidden Colors Task We have found that sign operations appear as the result of a complex and prolonged process subject to all the basic laws of psychological evolution. This means that sign-using activity in children is neither simply invented nor passed down from adults; rather it arises from something that is originally not a sign operation and becomes one only after a series of qualitiative transformation. (1978)

Explicit Mediation Vygotsky’s use of a professional social language of stimulus-means, but: Vygotsky’s use of a professional social language of stimulus-means, but: –Notions of meaning creep into the picture –The functional significance, efficacy, meaning (?) of stimulus-means changes with development

Implicit Mediation Best version: Chapter 7 of Thinking and Speaking (“Mysl’ i Slovo” [“Thought and Word”]) Best version: Chapter 7 of Thinking and Speaking (“Mysl’ i Slovo” [“Thought and Word”]) –Tension, dialectic between two poles of an opposition rather than between two independently existing phenomena –Word meaning as unit for analyzing this tension

Word and Thought Tension “Thought”: relatively inchoate, fused, unpartitioned, and nonsequential “Word”: introduces segmentation and sequencing Straight out of Shpet’s The Internal Form of the Word (1927)

Shpet Language is not completed action, “ergon,” but protracted activity, “energeia,” that is, as Humboldt explained, “perpetually repeated work of the spirit, directed at making articulate sound the means for expressing thought.”... Synthesis in this case does not consist of tying together two abstracted units: pure thought and pure sound, but two members of a unified concrete structure, two terms of relationship: object oriented sense content... and the external form of its verbal expression-embodiment... in sensory perceptible forms. These forms are transformed through a relation to sense from natural forms combined in the “thing” to social signification specifically in the signs of cultural meaning.

Tension between Word and Thought Mediation in this case: Mediation in this case: –Not explicit –Not the object of conscious reflection –Not externally or intentionally introduced

A Basic Claim for Vygotsky: Sign Meaning Develops Applies to both forms of mediation Applies to both forms of mediation Grounded in basic semiotic insights about materiality of “sign vehicle” and meaning Grounded in basic semiotic insights about materiality of “sign vehicle” and meaning Material sign vehicle used before its significance or fundtion is understood Material sign vehicle used before its significance or fundtion is understood –Cazden’s “performance before competence”

Development of Sign Meaning and Intersubjectivity Process of mediation is incredibly robust with regard to: Process of mediation is incredibly robust with regard to: –Use of material signs before they are understood –Rommetveit’s “carburetor” example –Use of cards in Forbidden Colors Task –Use of words without understanding

Statistics Instruction Example Graph paper as material sign vehicle Graph paper as material sign vehicle Instructions to find “typical” value and “spread” of observations Instructions to find “typical” value and “spread” of observations Early stages: little meaning or functional significance of terms Early stages: little meaning or functional significance of terms –But even here material sign vehicle affords and constrains action –Sign vehicle provides basis for intersubjectivity

Conclusion Need to differentiate forms of mediation Need to differentiate forms of mediation –Different forms of mediation => different forms of action Explicit vs. Implicit mediation Explicit vs. Implicit mediation Sign meaning develops applies to both forms of mediation Sign meaning develops applies to both forms of mediation Both share the property that material sign vehicles are used before understanding their meaning Both share the property that material sign vehicles are used before understanding their meaning