Although there are substantial differences between Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s t, they are not opposites since they share a conception of development that is equally far from traditional empiricist and rationalist conceptions. In his book Thought and Language (1934), Vygotsky provides a highly original and revolutionary approach to the traditional problem of the relationship between thought and language. His fundamental suggestion is that both capacities do not have the same type of relationship throughout the child’s development. The term “egocentric language“had been introduced by Piaget.
Lev Vygotsky and the roots of language and thought.
In his book Language and Thought in the Child (1923) Piaget pointed out that it was common for young children who were carrying out a task to speak without addressing anyone in particular. VygotskyHowever, he was able to see the true importance of children’s egocentric language, and proposed that, far from being a mere accompaniment to action, it could play a regulatory function on the child’s activities. It is important to note that Vygotsky does not identify the thought with internalized speech (this would be Watson’s position).
Vygotsky admits the existence of a prior thought independent of language, but defends that, from a certain moment in development, language merges with thought through a process of internalization linked to the regulatory function, giving rise to ” verbal thought”, on the one hand, and an “intellectualized language” on the other. The language begins by having a primarily communicative function, that is, a social function. However, language will come to join thought and develop a new non-communicative function. It is what Piaget had already called “egocentric language”, but without recognizing the importance of this behavior. From egocentric speech, internal speech develops, according to Vygotsky.
The Vygotskyan perspective
Vygotsky aims to build a new psychology, redefining both his object and his method:
- The main problem to be solved is the nature of consciousness, and the social genesis of higher psychological processes.
- What had to be done based on objective and quantifiable methods.
The Vygostskyan vision development can be characterized as “cultural-historical”.
- It is conceived as the process by which individuals appropriate the cultural resources that the community in which they live has developed.
- It consists of the acquisition and personalization of culture through the interaction of the individual with that social and cultural environment.
- Zone of proximal development: In the Vygotskyan perspective, it refers to the distance between the level of actual development, which is manifested in what the child is capable of doing on his or her own, and the level of potential development, which is reflected in what the child does. child can do with the support and guidance of a more capable child.
This does not mean denying the incidence of factors of natural and biological origin: the development of the individual (ontogenesis) is explained not only by the natural line of development (relative to the evolutionary calendar of biological maturation common to the species (phylogenesis), but in interaction with the socio-cultural line of development (relative to socially and culturally mediated learning)
In this process, mediated instrumental activity is of particular importance: cultural resources are conceived as symbolic, internally oriented instruments (particularly language) that allow directing one’s own behavior and that of others.
In this analysis, the importance of social interaction as the basis of the processes and mechanisms of intellectual development is highlighted, all of which, from the specifically ontogenic point of view, always implies two complementary levels:
- That relating to the mediating role of others, as promoters or facilitators of the ongoing processes, of progress in learning.
- The one relating to the subsequent internalization process that occurs on that social basis and that can be considered the task of the individual himself as such.
Reveere and Vygotsky: from the interpersonal to the intrapersonal
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