Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky is famous for his theories dealing with the developmental psychology, in particular, of children's cognition as it relates to social interaction and culture. His work, Thought and Language, is a classic text in psycholinguistics.
Life of Lev Vygotsky in a Nutshell
Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky (1896-1934) was born in Orsha, Belarus. He studied various social sciences at Moscow University in the field of linguistics, psychology, philosophy and the arts before turning to psychology, completing his famous work Thought and Language, which was published shortly after his death.
From 1924 until his death, he worked at the Institute of Psychology. His theories of cognitive development, especially his view of the relationship between language and thinking, have strongly influenced both Marxist and Western psychology.
Vygotsky's Work Focus
His main concern involved the relationship between thought and language. He believed that psychology had never investigated it systematically or in detail. The traditional view is that speech is the outer expression of an inner process. In Vygotsky's view, language and thought are logically distinct but contingently related.
He explained thus, that people happen to use vocalizations as a convenient means for expressing the ideas that independently occur in the minds. The picture is intuitive and compelling, but Vygotsky, like Wittgenstein, found it conceptually flawed.
Vygotsky stated that "the structure of speech is not simply the mirror image of the structure of thought." In other words, thought is restructured as it is transformed into speech, and completed in the word.
Vygotsky Socio-Cultural Theory
In his research and studies, Vygotsky investigated the phenomenon of children's play. He explained that an infant, as a dependent individual, cannot live an isolated existence. Accordingly, the child learns first by exposure to social stimuli, which he later internalizes.
He stressed that every function in the child's cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level which is between people (interpsychological), and later on the individual level which is inside the child (intrapsychological.)
Vygotsky concludes that in growing up within a particular linguistically structured relationship, "the child begins to perceive the world not only through its eyes but also through its speech. And later it is not just seeing but acting that becomes informed by words."
Thought and Language
Vygotsky's famous work, Thought and Language, 1934, explores the interrelationship of thought and language. He argued that thought is originally non-verbal and language is non-intellectual. The separate curves of thought and language development only meet at the age of around two, at which point thought becomes verbal and speech becomes rational.
He went on to explain that patterns of thinking and cognitive skills are the products of the particular culture within which an individual grows up. In the process, language plays a crucial role in determining how a child will think because modes of thought are transmitted to the child by means of words.
Vygotsky's work has had a strong influence in the philosophy of mind and language, and has its affinities with Wittgenstein's related philosophies. Vygotsky died of tuberculosis at the young age of 39. Most of his work is still being discovered.
Sources:
- Bullock, Alan & R.B. Woodings. The Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thinkers. London: Fontana Press, 1983.
- McGovern, Una, Ed.. Biographical Dictionary. Edinburgh: Chambers, 2002.
- Stokes, Philip. Philosophy, the Great Thinkers, London: Capella, 2007.
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