Vygotsky and His Theory

Hong Wang

“Learning, both outside and inside school, advances through collaborative social interaction and the social construction of knowledge” (Brown, Collins & Duguid, 1989, p. 40). Contemporarily, cognitive apprenticeship, distributed intelligence, and peer collaboration are strongly advocated and highly urged in educational practice by educators such as Brown, Collins, and Duguid, Pea (1993), and Perkins (1993). To trace back to the origin of such educational practice, I feel it is necessary to study Lev Vygotsky. Vygotsky is often associated with social constructivism while Jean Piaget is usually related to cognitive constructivism.

L. S. Vygotsky, a Russian psychologist was originally a teacher and literary scholar. His major works are Thought and Language (1962) and Mind in Society (1978), both of which published posthumously in the West. These works have influence Russian and Western psychology, in regard to child development. Vygotsky received his primary education at home with a private tutor, and then entered public school for his secondary education. He was such an excellent student in all subjects. However, throughout his life Vygotsky great love was theatre and poetry. Besides being able to read German and Russian, Vygotsky spoke Hebrew, French, Esperanto and English. He also learned Latin and Greek. Vygotsky's two outstanding cognitive characteristics were his exceptional reading speed and his extraordinary memory. Vygotsky graduated from Moscow University with a degree in law, but he also studied philosophy, psychology, and literature. He began his career as a psychologist and pursued this career for 17 years before his death from tuberculosis at the age of 38 in 1934. There are 180 works written by Vygotsky published in a variety of fields.

Vygotsky's ideas have been a powerful force in educational practice in his homeland – Russia, but it is only during the past decades that his works have become an important for Western education (Dixon-Krauss, 1996). Jerome Bruner described his conception of human development as a theory of education (Wertsch, 1985). Vygotsky's basic idea is that human behavior is too complex to isolate, dissect and study in a vacuum. It must instead be studied in the social and historical context in which it occurs (Vygotsky, 1978; 1981). Thus, his approach is often regarded as sociohistorical.

Vygotsky emphasizes the importance of culture and social context in learning. His theory is composed of three central concepts: internalization, semiotic mediation, and the zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978; 1981; 1986).

One aspect of Vygotsky's theory is that activities are first carried out by children on the external plane, and then on the internal plane. He said: ”Any function in the child's cultural development appears twice or on two planes. First it appears on the social plane, and then on the psychological plane. First it appears between people as an interpsychological category, and then within the child as an intrapsychological category" (Vygotsky, 1981, p.163).

Vygotsky points out that individuals are guided by their own mental processes as they participate in social activities. However, these processes are influenced by social experiences. Mental functions first begin on a social or interpsychological plane and then move to an inner or intrapsychological plane. He calls this process internalization. Internalization involves transforming social phenomena into psychological phenomena or making meaning through both external and internal interactions (Vygotsky, 1981). Vygotsky states: “When we speak of a process, 'external' means 'social.' Any higher mental function was external because it was social at some point before becoming an internal, truly mental function" (Vygotsky, 1981, p.162). For Vygotsky, the transformation of natural forms into higher cultural forms is one from external to the internal. As well, social reality plays a primary role in determining the nature of internal intrapsychological functioning.

“All higher mental functions are internalized social relationships.... Their composition, genetic structure, and means of action - in a word, their whole nature - is social. Even when we turn to mental processes, their nature remains quasi-social. In their own private sphere, human beings retain the functions of social interaction” (Vygotsky, 1981, p.164).

Vygotsky envisions a separate but related relationship between external social processes and internal psychological processes. According to him, external and internal processes are not copies of one another. Internalization transforms the external process into the internal, thus changing both the structure and functions of the process (Vygotsky, 1981).

Wertsch (1985) identified three points that are helpful to understand Vygotsky’s concept of interaction. First, internalization is not a process of copying external reality on a preexisting internal plane. Instead, it is a process where an internal plane of consciousness is formed. Second, the external reality is social and related to other people. Finally, the internal plane remains "quasi-social" because of its quasi-social nature.

Semiotic mediation is another important concept needed to understand Vygotsky. Vygotsky (1981) makes a distinction between what he terms "lower, natural behavior" and "higher, cultural behavior." Human beings share lower biological forms of mental behavior, such as elementary perception, memory, and attention with animals. The higher forms of human mental functions like logical memory, selective attention, decision-making and comprehension of language are products of mediated activity. Vygotsky (1986) labels the mediators of human activities as “psychological tools” or “signs.” These tools such as culture, language, and social context are important to human’s cognitive development. They give humans control over their mental behavior, as well as the power to regulate and change natural forms of behavior and cognition. Through the mediating actions of these tools, natural forms of behavior are transformed into higher, cultural forms, unique to humans (Vygotsky, 1986). Vygotsky calls this process semiotic mediation.

Vygotsky (1981; 1986) believes that lower mental behaviors are gradually transformed into higher ones through social interaction. Vygotsky tells us there are three stages in the development of speech: social or external speech, egocentric speech, and inner speech.

The function of speech is at first social, used for contact and interaction with others. Vygotsky (1986) explains that the social function is the first function of speech. If we want to know how words function in an individual’s behavior, we must take into account its former function in social context. Social speech carries out the task of communication and social relations with surrounding people. It is speech that children use to control the behavior of others. Children use speech to express simple thoughts and emotions such as crying, laughter and shouting.

Egocentric speech is the link between external speech and internal thought. "Egocentric speech is inner speech in its functions” (Vygotsky, 1986, p.86). Egocentric speech is a stage distinguished by external signs and external operations that are used as aids to solve internal problems. That is the stage when the child counts on his fingers, resorts to mnemonic aids, and so on. This is typically the type of speech found in a three- to seven-year-old.

Inner speech is similar to internal thought. The inner, soundless speech is a stage in which the external operation turns inward and undergoes a profound change in the process. Children begin to count in their heads and to use their "logical memory," that is, to operate with inherent relations and inner signs. This is the type of speech used by older children and adults. When functional and structural changes accumulate to a certain amount, inner speech occurs. “It branches off from the child's external speech simultaneously with the differentiation of the social and the egocentric functions of speech, and finally that the speech structures mastered by the child become the basic structures of his thinking" (Vygotsky, 1986, p.94).

The zone of proximal development (ZPD) is the most important concept among Vygotsky’s ideas. Vygotsky (1978) proposes that each child, in any domain, has an actual developmental level and a potential developmental level. The actual developmental level refers to all the functions and activities a child can perform on his/ her own without help from somebody else such as, a teacher, an adult or even a peer. The potential developmental level refers to all functions and activities a child can perform only with guidance and assistance of someone else. Vygotsky terms this difference between the two levels the zone of proximal development. He defines this as "… the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers" (Vygotsky, 1978, p.86). In the zone of proximal development, a teacher and a learner or an adult and a child work together on a task that the learner or the child could not perform independently because of the difficult level. In other words, the zone of proximal development is that area where children can achieve a goal with the support and guidance of a more knowledgeable other. Vygotsky explains this concept more clearly as follows:

“The zone of proximal development defines those functions that have not yet matured but are in the process of maturation, functions that will mature tomorrow but are currently in an embryonic state. These functions could be termed the “buds” or “flowers” of development rather than the “fruits” of development” (Vygotsky, 1978, p.86).

A child's actual developmental level identifies a child's level of mental development at a particular time. It indicates the functions that have already matured in the child. A child's ZPD defines those functions that have not matured yet, but are in the process of maturing and developing. A child's ZPD can be used to outline the child's immediate future and his overall dynamic state of development (Wertsch, 1985).

In summary, Vygotsky emphasizes the significance of social and cultural context in the process of making meaning or learning with focus on guidance and assistance from more knowledgeable others. In addition, he addresses the importance of tools such as language for cognitive development. To elaborate on the breadth and fathom of Vygotsky’s ideas is beyond my current capability and the goal of this short paper. However, I hoped I offered an overview of Vygotsky’s major concepts in order to improve our current practices as lifelong learners.

References

Brown, J.S., Collins, A. & Duguid, S. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational Researcher, 18(1), 32-42.

Dixon-Krauss, L. (1996). Vygotsky's sociohistorical perspective on learning and its application to western literacy instruction. In L. Dixon-Krauss (Ed.), Vygotsky in the classroom: Mediated literacy instruction and assessment. White Plains, N.Y.: Longman.

Pea, R. D. (1993). Practices of distributed intelligence and designs for education. In Salomon, G. (Ed.), Distributed cognition (pp. 47-87). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Perkins, D. N. (1993). Person-plus: a distributed view of thinking and learning. In Salomon, G. (Ed.), Distributed cognition (pp. 88-110). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes (M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner, & E. Souberman, Eds. and Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1981). The development of higher forms of attention in childhood. In J. V. Wertsch (Ed.), The concept of activity in Soviet psychology. Armonk, N.Y.: Sharpe.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1986). The genetic roots of thought and speech. In A. Kozulin (Trans. & Ed.), Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Wertsch, J. V. (1985). Vygotsky and the social formation of mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.