Re-understanding Vygotsky’s Psycholinguistics

1 Introduction

Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky (1896–1934) was a psychologist/psycholinguist in the early period of the former Soviet Union. He extensively researched language/speech development from the perspective of psychology, and language is one of the basic dimensions of his theoretical framework. From this point of view, the essence of Vygotsky’s theory is the theory of psycholinguistics. Throughout his life, Vygotsky devoted himself to constructing a whole theoretical system of psycholinguistics to explore human consciousness. Among the key concepts around which Vygotsky shaped his sociocultural psycholinguistics are: social interaction; the role of language and culture in conceptual development; semiotic mediation; language as a psychological tool; and the zone of proximal development.

However, as is often the case with complex, difficult-to-access theories, there are widely varying accounts of how these concepts fit into Vygotsky’s theoretical framework. It will be argued that, unless these concepts are seen as part of this framework and unless the methodological approach Vygotsky used to develop that framework is understood, it is difficult to appreciate essential aspects of these concepts. Getting a clear picture of his theoretical framework and methodological approach is challenging, because he deals with a complex phenomenon – the development of human consciousness and the role played by linguistic, natural, cultural, and social forces in shaping that consciousness. Additionally, Vygotsky’s reliance on Marx and Engels’ (1976) complex, much-maligned methodological approach to develop his own theoretical framework creates another challenge in accessing the essence of this framework. Inaccurate translations of his work, deletion of crucial passages, the impact of the social/ political environment in which he worked, and the banning of his work for two decades, 1936–1956, by the ruling bureaucracy in the Soviet Union have all added to this challenge. Drawing heavily on Vygotsky’s writings, and particularly those on his analysis of the unity resulting from the unification of thinking processes and language processes, we trace the development of his theoretical framework, which was described as a psychological materialist theoretical framework. Investigating Vygotsky’s reliance on Marx and Engels’ (1976) methodological approach to constructing the theory Vygotsky used to investigate human consciousness is the logical starting point.

From his first major speech in 1924 to the last page of his major work Thinking and speech, Vygotsky made it clear that the central goal of his research was the investigation of human consciousness. To do so, he argued that psycholinguistics needed to develop its own methodological approach to studying the development of the human mind/ psyche and its systems, but that it first needed an overarching philosophical theory to guide the development of that methodology. Vygotsky found both the theory and the methodology in Marx and Engels’ dialectical materialist approach in which they analyzed phenomena as processes, dynamic systems in which unification with other processes and systems is central to development. After developing their philosophical/ theoretical approach, they turned to developing a methodological approach to applying the general principles of dialectical materialism to study human social formations. Vygotsky used this approach to apply these principles to the study of the human brain/ mind as central to his theoretical framework.

After a brief overview of this dialectical/methodological approach, we describe the way in which Vygotsky started building his conceptual framework by investigating the origins and nature of human consciousness in the species and in the individual. He focused his research on the “dialectical leap” that takes place in the cultural and conceptual development of children through the qualitative transformation from elementary mental functions to higher psychical processes. That research laid the foundation for his investigation of the unification of thinking processes and those involved in the reception and production of meaningful communication using language. To analyze the entity created through this unification, Vygotsky derives a unit that is irreducible yet represents the whole of the unified entity. His analysis of unities and of the entities created through these unifications is a central feature of Vygotsky’s psycholinguistic theoretical framework.

2 Psyche/psychical and language/languaging

Throughout his work, Vygotsky stresses the importance of terminological clarification, because ignoring it “has led to a great deal of misunderstanding, with researchers often arguing about very different things that are designated by a single term” (Vygotsky 1987: 255). Therefore, before describing Vygotsky’s methodological approach, two terms used to describe central concepts in Vygotsky’s conceptual framework – psyche/psychical and languaging – should be clarified.

1. Psyche: In developing his approach to the study of psycholinguistics (the study of the psyche through language/ sign use), Vygotsky critiqued approaches that separated mind and matter and argued that instead the brain/ mind should be studied as a unity, the initial aspect of which was comparing and contrasting mental functions in humans and animals. One of his most important contributions was his detailed examination of the qualitative transformation that takes place in the mental processing of children when they begin communicating meaning through language. Vygotsky underscored that, through this qualitative transformation, a new entity came into existence, higher psychical processes, leading to the development of the human psyche. He distinguished between mind/mental and psyche/psychical processes: “We must not ask about the biological meaning of mental processes but about the biological meaning of psychological (psychical) processes and then the whole insoluble problem of the mind appears soluble” (Vygotsky 1997a: 115). Psyche here refers to the brain/ mind entity created through the dialectical leap in which children start to use symbolic representation to communicate meaning.

2. Languaging: A central focus for Vygotsky was the relationship between thinking processes and speaking processes, but speaking connotes the oral and tends not to include those who have language but not audible speech. It also does not clearly connote the internal forces engaged in the production and reception of language; therefore, we use the term languaging to refer to all the physical, mental/psychical, and social processes involved in the reception and production of meaningful communication through the use of signs/words, and it will cover all aspects involved in communicating meaning through symbols.

3 Vygotsky’s psychological materialism and Marx’s historical materialism

An appreciation of how Vygotsky draws from both Marx and Engels’ (1976) dialectical theory and methodological approach in developing his own methodological approach is crucial for understanding essential aspects of his theoretical framework. Such an appreciation is often elusive because of the distortions of Marxism in the West and in the Soviet Union by the bureaucracy headed by Stalin, which ruled during the decade 1924–1934, in which Vygotsky produced the majority of his work (see Mahn 2010). To guide this work, Vygotsky relied on the principles of the dialectical approach that Marx and Engels developed and then applied to the study of human social formations through their theory of historical materialism. Vygotsky applied this dialectical approach to the study of the human mind/ psyche as he developed a theory of “psychological materialism as an intermediate science which explains the concrete application of the abstract theses of dialectical materialism to the given field of phenomena” (1997a: 330).

In describing a fundamental principle of dialectical materialism, the only constant is change. For the first time, the whole world – natural, historical, intellectual – is represented as a process that is in constant motion, change, transformation, and development, and the attempt was made to trace out the internal connection that makes a continuous whole of all this movement and development.

To investigate movement and development, Vygotsky used a genetic approach, which examined the origins and development of processes, aimed to discover: 1) the forces that bring the entity being studied into existence and those that take it out of existence; 2) the forces behind its development; and 3) the qualitative transformations in the course of its development. To investigate the internal connections that make an integrated and continuous whole of this movement and development, Vygotsky examined the interrelationships within and between different systems, including mental, physical, biological, cultural, social, and historical. “Systems and their fate – it seems to me that for us the alpha and omega of our next work must reside in these four words” (1997a: 107).

Vygotsky, following Marx and Engels, argued that overarching, general dialectical principles could not be applied directly to whatever was being studied. “The direct application of the theory of dialectical materialism to the problems of natural science and psychology is impossible, just as it is impossible to apply it directly to history and sociology” (1997a: 330). Instead, an intermediary theory, a general theory of psychology – psychological materialism – must be developed.

In order to create such intermediary theories – methodologies, general sciences – we must reveal the essence of the given area of phenomena, the laws of their change, their qualitative and quantitative characteristics, their causality, we must create categories and concepts appropriate to it. (Vygotsky 1997a: 330)

Because the terms methodology and general science have such a broad range of meanings associated with them, clarifying Vygotsky’s use of them will help disclose the concepts he was conveying. “‘Method’ means two different things: (1) the research methods, the technology of the experiment; and (2) the epistemological method, or methodology, which determines the research goal, the place of the science, and its nature” (1997a: 274). Vygotsky argued that in order to apply Marx and Engels’ dialectical philosophical/ theoretical approach to psychology, a general methodology needed to be developed because, “Methodology is the linchpin through which philosophy guides science [...] no philosophical system can take possession of psychology directly without the help of methodology, i.e., without the creation of a general science” (1997a: 329–330).

The methodology that Marx and Engels used as the means through which philosophy could guide their science was reflected in their intermediary theory of historical materialism. They used this theory to study the formation of human societies by developing concepts and categories such as class struggle, value, labor, commodity, and others, through an analysis of the origins and historical development of these formations. For his part, Vygotsky developed the intermediary theory psychological materialism, a dialectics of psychology, by studying the phylogenetic and ontogenetic development of the human brain/mind/psyche using concepts and categories such as unification, thinking, speaking/languaging, social interaction, mediation, generalization, psychical processes, concept formation, and others. In these studies, he used a dialectical approach because “dialectics covers nature, thinking, history – it is the most general, maximally universal science. The theory of psychological materialism or dialectics of psychology is what I call general psychology” (1997a: 330).

4 Preliminary psychical processes and advanced psychical processes

In developing his methodological approach and theory of psychological materialism, Vygotsky focused on the qualitative transformation that occurs in the mind/brain unity as children begin to acquire speech and tool use. This process is “on the one hand, uninterrupted and, on the other, accompanied by leaps or the development of new qualities” (1997a: 112). An essential aspect of Vygotsky’s theoretical framework is his analysis of the “dialectical leap” that occurs when elementary mental functions, with which infants are born, such as involuntary attention, visual perception, and unmediated memory, are transformed into higher psychical processes such as voluntary attention, verbal perception, and mediated/ logical memory. Mental functions should not be viewed as processes that “exist on top of and alongside the brain processes […] but as the subjective expression of the same processes […] as a special qualitative characteristic of the higher functions of the brain” (p. 113). Vygotsky argues, therefore, for a new methodological approach that does not study the mental and physical separately, but as an “integral process which is characterized by both a subjective and objective side at the same time” (p. 113).

In clarifying this statement, Vygotsky differentiated epistemological and ontological approaches, explaining that if the goal is epistemological – to examine what is known and how it is known – then mental and physical processes can be analyzed separately; but if the goal is ontological – to examine being, an entity’s existence in and of itself – then the unified mental and physical processes have to be examined as a whole in order to reveal the essence of that whole, the brain/ mind unity. He argued that, because psychology’s viewpoint is ontological, it would be a mistake to oppose the mental and physical. “Whereas in epistemological analysis we must strictly oppose sensation and object, we must not oppose the mental and physiological processes in psychological (ontological) analysis” (1997a: 114). He cautions though that the mental and physical should not be investigated as merged, as an identity.

Vygotsky saw dialectical psychology’s basic task as developing “[t]he ability to view the mental process as an organic connection of a more complex integral process” (1997a: 115). This psychology “does not mix up the mental and physiological processes” but recognizes the “unique psycho-physiological unitary processes” which “represent the higher forms of human behavior, which we suggest calling psychological (psychical) processes, in contradistinction to mental processes” (1997a: 113). His differentiation between the mind/mental on one hand and psyche/psychical on the other is fundamental to his analysis of the psychical processes that distinguish humans from higher primates and which develop in children when they go through a qualitative transformation from mind – elementary mental functions – to psyche – higher psychical processes. Unfortunately, translation issues have obscured the essence of this dialectical leap from mind to psyche, which Vygotsky (1997b) describes in The history of the development of higher mental functions. The translation of psikhicheskikh as mental, instead of as psychical, which is the way Vygotsky uses it in the Russian original – obscures the distinction Vygotsky draws between mental and psychical, by referring to both elementary mental functions and higher psychical processes as mental. To stay true to this use, and because using mental for both tends to convey a more linear process, without a focus on the leap to higher psychical processes, the term psychical should be used to refer to the higher processes that Vygotsky identifies as resulting from the dialectical leap.

Vygotsky uses a concept derived from Hegel to argue that the transformation of elementary mental functions to higher psychical processes “can be best explained via what in dialectics is called ‘snyatie’ (Aufheben)” (1997b: 113). The German term Aufheben has three seemingly contradictory meanings – 1) to raise up, 2) to cancel, and 3) to preserve – all of which Hegel incorporated in his analysis of entities created through the unification of contradictory processes. Incorporating Hegel’s concept, Vygotsky explained that the dialectical leap from elementary mental functions to higher psychical processes involves, on the one hand, the process of raising up, and on the other, of cancelling, but at the same time preserving. The elementary mental functions provide the foundation for higher psychical processes, which come into existence when thinking processes are unified with those involved in languaging. The elementary mental functions do not disappear, but are transformed by the higher psychical processes, such as when visual perception is transformed into verbal perception, etc. The concept of Aufheben, as it is used in this example, is central to Vygotsky’s psychological materialist theoretical framework, because it helps explain the processes of unification that Vygotsky studied.

Building on the physical/mental unity, Vygotsky explored the unity between nature and culture and the instrumental role this unity plays in the development of children’s psychical processes and systems of concepts. He maintained that the natural and the cultural processes are “inseparably connected” from birth and that “the first contact of the child with reality (even in carrying out the most elementary biological functions) is wholly and completely socially mediated” (Vygotsky 1998: 215). His analysis of the elementary mental functions from birth includes examining the role that culture and social interaction play from the start in the development of those functions. This provides the foundation for his analysis of the dialectical leap from those functions to higher psychical processes through the acquisition of language.

Every function in the child’s cultural development appears twice: first, between people (inter-psychological) and then inside the child (intrapsychological). This applies equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, and to the formation of ideas. All the higher functions originate as actual relationships between individuals. (Vygotsky 1980: 57) Vygotsky discovered two fundamental laws for his theory of psychological materialism in his examination of this leap: the first, “the law of the transition from direct, innate, natural forms and methods of behavior to mediated, artificial mental functions that develop in the process of cultural development”; and the second that “the relation between higher psychical processes was at one time a concrete relation between people” (1998: 167–168).

5 Language/sign mediation and psychological/semiotic tool

The higher psychical processes are mediated processes. A central and basic aspect of their structure is the use of the sign as a means of directing and mastering mental processes (1987: 126). The mastery of the elementary mental functions/processes by higher psychical processes through mediated means is a key aspect of Vygotsky’s psychological materialist theoretical framework.

In spite of his using an analogy between tool use and sign use to clarify the concept mediation, interpretations of this analogy and its importance in Vygotsky’s theoretical framework have actually served to obscure his use of the concept. Vygotsky used this analogy to describe the logical relationship between tool use and sign use in that “both may be considered as coordinative concepts included in a more general concept – mediating activity” (1997b: 61). This analogy has been used as a foundation for the widespread assumption that the concept of language as a semiotic tool, as a psychological tool, is a key aspect of Vygotsky’s theoretical framework; however, as Vygotsky emphasized, “our diagram is intended to present the logical relation of the concepts, but not the genetic or functional (on the whole, real) relations of the phenomena” (p. 62). The italicized text, excised in Mind in society (Vygotsky 1980) the most widely read text in English on Vygotsky’s tool–sign analogy, clearly shows the tool–sign analogy was not central to Vygotsky’s theory, since it did not reveal “real relations,” but instead served “to erase the profound difference between the one tool use and the other sign use, to dissolve in general psychological determinations the specific distinctive characteristics of each type of activity” (p. 60). The distinctive roles played by tools in mastering the processes of nature and by language in facilitating social interaction and communication, “dissolve in the general concept of artifacts or artificial devices” (p. 61). The vague and indeterminate meaning “usually connected with the figurative use of the word tool actually does not lighten the task of the researcher interested in the real and not the picturesque aspect that exists between behavior and its auxiliary devices,” but in fact serves to “obscure the road of research” (p. 61). Vygotsky uses mediation to explain the origins and development of internal psychical processes, structures, and systems, which the concept language as a semiotic psychological tool obscures, because the focus remains on mediating activity not on the nature of the internal psychical system that results from that activity.

6 Rechevóye myshlénie and znachenie slova

6.2 Generalization and conceptualization

Vygotsky’s analysis of znachenie slova to investigate rechevóye myshlénie constitutes a central aspect of Vygotsky’s psychological materialist theoretical framework, but again translation and ideological issues have obscured the concepts behind Vygotsky’s use of znachenie slova. “The Russian word znachenie connotes meaning and slova contains word” (Liu and Mahn 2016: 346) to represent language use as a whole, as languaging. Translating this Russian phrase word-for-word into word meaning tends to obscure the concept Vygotsky was conveying because it has focused researchers on the external linguistic features of speech, instead of the internal structure Vygotsky was capturing in znachenie slova. While recognizing the importance of external speech, Vygotsky makes it clear that he is using znachenie slova differently to describe an inner structure: znachenie slova is not the sum of all the psychological operations which stand behind the word. Znachenie slova is something more specific – it is the internal structure of the sign operation. It is what is lying between the thought and the word. Znachenie slova is not equal to the word nor equal to thought (1997a: 133).

He contended that an analysis of the unit znachenie slova would provide answers to the relationship between thinking and languaging processes because this relationship is already contained in izbrannoy namee edinitse (the unit selected by us). In studying the functioning, structure, and development of this unit, we will come to understand a great deal that is of direct relevance to the problem of the relationship of thinking to speech and to the nature of rechevóye myshlénie (1987: 47-48).

This concept of znachenie slova representing an internal structure in a broader system rechevóye myshlénie has been obscured by the way that Vygotsky’s concept of unit is portrayed in English translations. The specificity with which Vygotsky uses the concept unit is lost when the Russian phrase, izbrannoy namee edinitse (the unit selected by us), is translated as “unit of analysis.” That phrase, used with different connotations in many unrelated fields, does not convey several essential aspects of Vygotsky’s criteria for selecting his unit, that it is: 1) an aspect of the unity created through the unification of two distinct processes, 2) selected through extensive analysis, and 3) irreducible, and 4) that the functioning, structure, and development of the unit itself should be studied. These criteria were also not considered when A. N. Leontiev (1981) substituted his unit object-oriented activity for Vygotsky’s znachenie slova, claiming Vygotsky’s unit was not sufficient to study consciousness. The assertion that Vygotsky derived his unit to study consciousness is widespread, but Vygotsky is clear that he is using his unit specifically as a unit of an internal mental/psychical system that develops with the unification of thinking and languaging processes. Although this is certainly an important aspect of consciousness, Vygotsky did not develop znachenie slova to study consciousness.

Vygotsky starts his analysis of znachenie slova by asking how this unit is related to the thinking/languaging unity: “Is znachenie slova speech or is it thought?” (1987: 47). We cannot say that znachenie slova is a phenomenon of either speech or thinking. The word without meaning is not a word but an empty sound. Meaning is a necessary, constituting feature of the word itself. It is the word viewed from the inside. This justifies the view that znachenie slova is a phenomenon of speech. In psychological terms, however, znachenie slova is nothing other than a generalization, that is, a concept. In essence, generalization and znachenie slova are synonyms. Any generalization – any formation of a concept – is unquestionably a specific and true act of thought. Thus, znachenie slova is also a phenomenon of thinking (1987: 244).

The concept generalization is a cornerstone in the psychological materialist theoretical framework Vygotsky is constructing because it provides the key to understanding the unification of the thinking and languaging processes. “It is not difficult to see that generalization is a verbal act of thought; its reflection of reality differs radically from that of immediate sensation or perception” (1987: 47). Vygotsky describes the role generalization plays in creating the foundation for rechevóye myshlénie by analyzing children’s first words. Initially, they are more a part of the child’s sensuous activity rather than primarily object related. The sound “doggy” represents not just the animal, but rather is part of the child’s whole experience of the dog, the smell, the sounds, the touch, the emotions, etc. Through many interactions in different circumstances, the child comes to know that this particular configuration of sound represents an object. In social interaction, the child becomes aware that the sound “doggy” represents not just one particular dog, but also all dogs, and not all four-legged creatures. “The word does not relate to a single object, but to an entire group or class of objects. Therefore, every word is a concealed generalization. From a psychological perspective, znachenie slova is first and foremost a generalization” (1987: 47).

Vygotsky (1987) illustrates how a word can help transform elementary mental functions to higher psychical processes in the course of social interaction. Used in relation to doggy it facilitates the development of the psychical processes of voluntary attention, partitioning, comparison, analysis, abstraction, and synthesis by helping the child focus attention, isolate, abstract, generalize, and then synthesize features. Vygotsky describes how these abilities are reflected in the development of three different forms of thinking – syncretic thinking, thinking in complexes, and thinking in concepts – and how they affect the structure of generalization in his theoretical framework. These modes of thinking are responsible for “the formation of connections, the establishment of relationships among different concrete impressions, the unification and generalization of separate objects, and the ordering and the systematization of the whole of the child’s experience” (1987: 135). In the syncretic mode, the use of language is based on the child’s subjective experiences as in the child with “doggy.” A qualitative transformation to thinking in complexes takes place when the child begins to use language based on objective relations in their environment not on their subjective reactions. They begin to generalize generalizations, the “doggy” is also a “pet.” This development is facilitated by the growing ability to use abstract thinking for “the isolation of the meaning from sound, the isolation of word from thing, and the isolation of thought from word which are all necessary stages in the history of the development of concepts” (1987: 284). The ability to use abstract thinking is key to the third mode of thinking – thinking in concepts.

Vygotsky’s use of algebra to illustrate thinking in concepts also illustrates his assertion that the content of thinking influences the form of thinking. In order to deal with the content of algebra, adolescents are pushed to think in concepts, which “presupposes the ability to view these isolated, abstracted elements independently of the concrete and empirical connections in which they are given. The true concept depends equally on the processes of analysis and synthesis” (1987: 156).

After his structural analysis of znachenie slova, Vygotsky turns to a functional analysis to examine the process of thinking – “the complex movement from the first vague emergence of a thought to its completion in a verbal formulation” (p. 249) – to show that “with each stage in development there exists not only a specific structure of znachenie slova, but a special relationship between thinking and speech that defines this structure” (p. 249). To begin his functional analysis of these “special relationships,” and their implications for his theoretical framework, Vygotsky differentiates two planes of speech – the inner/meaningful/semantic and the external/ auditory/syntactic – and argues that in spite of the fact that they move in opposite directions, “the development of the internal and external aspects of speech form a true unity” (p. 251). In his analysis of znachenie slova, Vygotsky focuses on the unity, the “internal dependency” (p. 253) of the two planes, which provides the means through which “[t]hought is restructured as it is transformed into speech” (p. 250). Vygotsky examines this process more deeply through another internal plane of speech – inner speech, because “without a correct understanding of the psychological nature of inner speech, we cannot clarify the actual complex relationships between thought and word” (p. 253). He identifies characteristics of inner speech by examining external egocentric speech, because, “[a]s the functional character of egocentric speech is increasingly expressed, we begin to see the emergence of its syntactic characteristics. We begin to see its simplicity and predicativity” (1987: 274).

After analyzing the syntactic characteristics, Vygotsky turns to the semantic characteristics of inner speech. The first is the predominance of the word’s sense over its meaning in inner speech. Because the child’s initial experience with “doggy” was sensual, his/ her subjective experiences lay the foundation for her sense of the word, which is “the aggregate of all the psychological (psychical) facts that arise in our consciousness as a result of the word” (pp. 275–276). Through social interaction, the child develops the meaning of “doggy,” which becomes the most stable zone in his/her sense of that word. Meaning is just one of several zones in sense’s dynamic, fluid, complex formation, and in this way, sense predominates over meaning; sense and meaning are all included in perezhivanie. Vygotsky points out that the way in which an experience is perceived and made sense of actually affects the environment, not physically, but perceptually. Perezhivanie describes the way that individuals participate in and make meaning of human sensuous activity.

The paragraph in which Vygotsky describes the relationship between sense and meaning exemplifies the confusion that results from lack of clarity on his different uses of the term meaning. He writes “meaning is only one of these zones of sense” and a few sentences later, “the actual meaning of the word is inconstant” (p. 276). In the first, he clearly refers to meaning/znachenie slova as an aspect of the internal plane of speech, while in the second, he is referring to the external plane of speech, actual speech. Not being clear about the different concepts Vygotsky conveys using the same word makes it difficult to understand his insights into the nature of inner speech as “an internal plane of rechevóye myshlénie which mediates the dynamic relationship between thought and word” (p. 279).

To understand the true role and significance of inner speech, it is necessary “to take the next analytic step inward […] to thought itself” (p. 280). After examining the internal plane of thought, Vygotsky takes a final step inward and posits a plane beyond thought, because thought “is not born of other thoughts. Thought has its origins in the motivating sphere of consciousness, this sphere that includes our inclinations and needs, our interests and impulses, and our affect and emotion. The affective and volitional tendency stands behind thought” (p. 282).

Vygotsky concludes his functional analysis of znachenie slova by summarizing his findings on the role of mediation in the internal and external planes of speech. “Thought is not only mediated externally by signs. It is mediated internally by znachenie slova” but “thought is never the direct equivalent of znachenie slova” (p. 282). He then draws a central conclusion that the external production of language, “the transition from znachenie slova to sound itself develops” and that “this development constitutes an important aspect of the development of rechevóye myshlénie” (Vygotsky 1987: 253). “The primary result of this work is the conclusion that constitutes the conceptual center of our investigation, that is that znachenie slova develops […] It is our major discovery – our new and fundamental contribution to the theory of thinking and speech” (1987: 245). Thus, znachenie slova – the internal structure of meaning – develops and represents the essence of rechevóye myshlénie (the thinking/languaging system).

Our main purpose in this article is to represent Vygotsky’s major discovery – the entire complex internal thinking/languaging system with all of its interconnections with other systems develops with points of qualitative transformation affecting the whole course of the individual’s social, natural, cultural, cognitive, and conceptual development, and this development is far different than that of the concept conveyed with “verbal thinking” and “word meaning,” as Figure 1 demonstrates.

Figure 1

Thinking/languaging development

7 Conclusion

At the end of Thinking and speech Vygotsky says that while his investigation into rechevóye myshlénie has revealed that this complex system develops, there is still much work to be done to understand it more deeply. He also indicates that although his research addressed the role of the thinking/languaging unity in developing human consciousness, there were key components of consciousness like emotion and intelligence that were not addressed. His analysis of znachenie slova demonstrated that it is key to studying consciousness. “Our investigation has brought us to the threshold of the problem of consciousness, the problem of the relationship between the word and consciousness” (1987: 285). Vygotsky’s untimely death and the banning of his work shut down the pursuit of these goals. When his work was rehabilitated, it was based on fundamentally different methodological approaches and theoretical frameworks than the ones that Vygotsky used to develop his psychological materialist theoretical framework.

Our intent has been to present Vygotsky’s description of the development of his methodological approach and theoretical framework to investigate the human psyche. Having given a broad overview of the development of this conceptual framework in which concepts like zone of proximal development, semiotic mediation, and cultural and conceptual development are situated and best understood, a question remains: How can this be applied to sociocultural research on L2 teaching/learning? Vygotsky emphasized that developing a general methodology was primary. Is there a general methodology, in the sense Vygotsky used it, guiding sociocultural L2 research? If so, what is its character, and if not, how does that square with Vygotsky putting the development of a general methodology as the sine non qua for developing approaches to research? Do sociocultural approaches in L2 recognize the distinction that Vygotsky makes between epistemological and ontological approaches to research? And do they incorporate the analytic approach Vygotsky used to derive the unit for his ontological study of the unity of languaging/ thinking processes?

Vygotsky’s analysis of the development of rechevóye myshlénie (the thinking/languaging system) and znachenie slova (meaning through language) can provide a theoretical framework for L2 studies. For example, starting with a foundation based on Vygotsky’s analysis of the development of the thinking/languaging system through all of its transformations from birth through adolescence outlined above, it should study how the processes in creating znachenie slova and rechevóye myshlénie are affected if they are also engaged with learning L2. A number of variables can be factored in, including: the age at which L2 is introduced; is it simultaneous with L1; is L2 introduced before or after schooling begins; does it take place in school; how does L2 affect the development of the structure of generalization and the relationship of the system of concepts in L1 and L2; how does the change in the mode of thinking affect L2; how does the transformation at adolescence affect learning L2; and how do all of these effect the L2 development of deaf children and others with different learning challenges? Other L2 studies could investigate how Vygotsky’s analysis of the qualitative transformations taking place during the critical periods occurring at birth, one, 2–3, 6–7, 12 and 17 can be used as a foundation to examine the interconnected influence of these critical periods on L2 acquisition and development. How is the transformation that takes place at age 12 influenced by L2 acquisition and vice versa? Vygotsky did not analyze the critical period at age 17 because it extended beyond his focus on child development. Because a lot of L2 sociocultural research is with adults, in and out of academic institutions, understanding the nature of the transformation that takes place at 17 would be important to maintain the continuity of Vygotsky’s analysis of the process of development in his theory of psychological materialism. It would address the application of key concepts Vygotsky developed in his study of child development to research with adults.

The complexity of Vygotsky’s methodological approach and theoretical framework mirrors the complexity of what he was studying – human consciousness – but it is double edged. On the one hand, it can make it less accessible, but on the other hand, the complexity of both the methodological approach and theoretical framework are what makes his work so insightful and useful for researchers and practitioners engaged in all aspects of language teaching/learning and cognitive development.