VYGOTSKY AND LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

The Mozart of Psychology

Lev Semonovich Vygotsky was born in Western Russian on Nov

19, 1896 into a non-religious middle class Russian Jewish family.

1917-graduated from Moscow University with a degree in law

Worked in post-revolutionary Soviet Union to rebuild psychology

along Marxist lines

Completed 270 scientific articles, numerous lectures and 10

books based on a wide range of Marxist-based psychological

and teaching theories

Worked on theories of cognitive development and

conducted researches and wrote during the same time as

Piaget (1920-30s)

His writings were banned in Soviet Union in 1936 and

became available only in West in 1960s

He is considered a seminal thinker in psychology and much

of his work is still discovered and explored today

He died of TB at the age of 38(1934)

Vygotsky’s theories

The major theme of Vygotsky's theoretical framework is that

social interaction plays a fundamental role in the development of

cognition.

Vygotsky (1978) states : "Every function in the child's cultural

development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on

the individual level; first, between people (interpsychological) and

then inside the child (intrapsychological). This applies equally to

voluntary attention, to logical memory, and to the formation of

concepts. All the higher functions originate as actual relationships

between individuals."

the potential for cognitive development depends upon the zone

of proximal development (ZPD): a level of development

attained when children engage in social behavior. Full

development of the ZPD depends upon full social interaction. The

range of skill that can be developed with adult guidance or peer

collaboration exceeds what can be attained alone.

Vygotsky's theory was an attempt to explain consciousness as

the end product of socialization.

Vygotsky and Language development Vygotsky believed that language develops from social

interactions, for communication purposes.

According to Vygotsky (1962) language plays 2 critical roles in

cognitive development:

1. It is the main means by which adults transmit information

to children.

2. Language itself becomes a very powerful tool of intellectual

adaptation.

Stages of language development

Primitive Stage- characterised by the infant experimenting

with sound production.

The coos, ga-gas and babbles emitted have no purpose but to

explore the baby's sense of sound.

The lack of speech during this phase means no verbal thought

is taking place. This does not mean the baby has a lack of

thought, but rather a lack of relationship with her thoughts.

Naive Stage- begins when babies learn to speak

The baby speaks words without fully grasping their purpose and

meaning.

When an infant utters "doggy," he could mean "Where is my

doggy?" or "I want the doggy now."

Over time, the child uses slightly more complex phrases such as

"doggy now." These phrases lack an understanding of grammar or

structure. The infant determines meaning from the responses

others give to his phrases.

External Stage- the child starts to use objects to signify meaning and

words in the external stage. Toys and fingers are examples of what she

might use to express herself.

. Rhyming is also a device used in this phase to help solidify her memory

of objects and sounds

What Vygotsky calls private speech typifies this phase as well. This kind

of speech occurs when the child talks to herself while alone and when

interacting with others. Vygotsky calls this event the start of a child's

verbalisation of thought.

Ingrowth Stage- occurs when children start to internalise

many of the tasks he learnt during the previous phases. For

example, he will count in his head as opposed to using his

fingers to numerate.

A need to communicate with others people around him

improves his ability to internalise thought and actions.

Inner speech also shortens during this phase, called

predication. Thought sentences will lack a subject, because

that subject is already known to the child.

Important Factors in Language

DevelopmentAccording to Lev Vygotsky language acquisition involves

not only a child's exposure to words but also an

interdependent process of growth between thought and

language.

Experience- Children acquire knowledge as a result of engaging

in social experiences. Through social and language interactions,

older and more experienced members of a community teach

younger and less experienced members the skills, values, and

knowledge needed to be productive members of that community

Signals- According to Vygotsky, words are signals. Rather than

engage children in a primary signal system, in which objects are

referred to merely as themselves, adults engage children in a

secondary signal system, in which words represent objects and

ideas.

Cognition-A child's intellectual development is crucial

to his language development. By interacting with his

environment, a child develops the ability to develop

private, inner speech. Through the development of inner

speech, children straddle the divide between thought

and language, eventually being able to express their

thoughts coherently to others.

Types of speechVygotsky differentiates between three forms of speech:

social speech which is external communication used to

talk to others (typical from the age of two)

private speech (typical from the age of three) which is

directed to the self and serves an intellectual function

private speech goes underground, diminishing in audibility

as it takes on a self-regulating function and is transformed

into silent inner speech (typical from the age of seven).

For Vygotsky, thought and language are initially separate

systems from the beginning of life, merging at around three

years of age. At this point speech and thought become

interdependent: thought becomes verbal, speech becomes

representational. When this happens, children's monologues

internalized to become inner speech. The internalization of

language is important as it drives cognitive development.

"Inner speech is not the interior aspect of external speech -

it is a function in itself. It still remains speech, i.e. thought

connected with words. But while in external speech thought

is embodied in words, in inner speech words dies as they

bring forth thought. Inner speech is to a large extent

thinking in pure meanings"(Vygotsky, 1962)

Vygotsky was the first psychologist to document the

importance of private speech.

He considered private speech as the transition point

between social and inner speech, the moment in

development where language and thought unite to

constitute verbal thinking.

Thus private speech, in Vygotsky's view, was the earliest

manifestation of inner speech.

Private speech is typically defined, in contrast to social

speech, as speech addressed to the self (not to others) for

the purpose of self-regulation (rather than communication)

Vygotsky proposed that private speech diminishes and

disappears with age not because it becomes socialized,

as Piaget suggested, but rather because it goes

underground to constitute inner speech or verbal

thought.

Vygotsky sees private speech as a means for children to

plan activities and strategies and therefore aid their

development.

Vygotsky notes that private speech does not merely

accompany a child’s activity but acts as a tool used by the

developing child to facilitate cognitive processes, such as

overcoming task obstacles, enhancing imagination,

thinking, and conscious awareness.

Children use private speech most often during

intermediate difficulty tasks because they are attempting to

self-regulate by verbally planning and organizing their

thoughts .

Conclusion

Vygotsky argued that language development first takes place

on a social plane. The child observes the parents' behavior,

listens to the parents' speech, and tries to imitate. The parents

guide the child in his/her efforts, making corrections when

needed and providing greater challenges when appropriate.

As the child becomes more competent information becomes

internalized. Language is then represented in the mind as

thought or inner speech.

THANK YOU

SUBMITTED BY

MISS JYOTHI THOMAS

B.Ed ENGLISH

ST.JOHNS B.Ed COLLEGE

KAYAMKULAM