Trying to understand the origin or cause of our behaviors through or due to the influence of culture and society is made easier for us thanks to Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, which explains how everything cognitive is related to knowledge, which is obtained through experience. This Psychology-Online article will explain how, through the knowledge obtained from experience, we can adapt and understand reality.
Vygotsky’s theory of language
in his book Thought and Language (1993), proposed the analysis of the relationships between these two psychological functions, from a theoretical perspective never before addressed. He proposes that awareness should be understood as a dynamic system of psychological functions, where thought and language are only two; These functions constitute the diverse forms of the activity of consciousness. He language For Vygotsky it is an instrument fundamental for the development of thinking and its evolution. It is for this reason that Vygotsky proposes that thought and language are the basis for understanding the nature of human consciousness.
If we consider language as an instrument that has a social origin, we mean that every activity or mental process is mediated by the use of psychological instruments, that is, symbols that facilitate or enable thinking. For this author the instruments could be: language, works of art, writing and drawings. Reason why the use of graphic organizers within the classroom helps to develop thinking and language; as well as the organization of ideas and their structuring.
Caicedo (2012) states that the brain has been equipped through evolution with areas specialized in processing certain stimuli according to universal rules of language. Broca’s area involved in language production and Wernicke’s area associated with semantic language processes. Here you can see. Caicedo states that both are structures with the capacity to process not only sound stimuli, but also those that contain visual and spatial information that can be processed linguistically.
Medina (2007) states that all mental activity is mediated by the use of psychological instruments, that is, symbols that make it possible to think, and in fact carry out activities. As Reuven Feuerstein (2008) also explains, the cognitive mind is an organizer of the world, which is formed and structured from an early age.
For Vygotsky the origin of symbols is socio-cultural Since these are the channel for thought, for Vygotsky symbols recreate and reorganize the mental composition. Vygotsky (2001) refers that the understanding of language is a chain of associations that arise in the mind, under the influence of known images of the words. Therefore, between language and thought, “meaning” plays an important role.
For Vygotsky (2001) the meaning of the word is not static, but rather evolves with development. It is for this reason that this author proposes that the meaning of the word functions as a unit of analysis of consciousness. The meaning is the response that is produced; The evolution of our thinking is foreshadowed by language, that is, by those linguistic instruments of thought and the social and cultural experience of the subject.
Therefore this unit of analysis is connoted to the inter and intra psychological areas; considering what Reuven Feuerstein says about: the metacognitive component includes awareness of the factors that affect thinking and the control one has over these factors.
Medina (2007) explains that the meaning of a symbol, that is, understanding its connotation, is a task that falls on the interpreter himself. Thought is restructured and modified when transformed into language.
Since we were children we have been taught to talk to others “how to say hello, ask about the lives of others” but we were never taught to talk to ourselves, even though this is a very important basis of metacognition, being aware of ourselves and others. others, our social conscience. As Marco Ledesma (2014) refers Thought and language continually bring about changes in everyday life., are turns that focus on communication, with the intention of expressing what one has inside, guided by experiences and illusions. From a neurolinguistics approach, the unconscious of human beings is fundamental, in subjective and intersubjective relationships. Keeping Lacan in mind, the other influences the development and formulation of language in everyday life.
Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory: summary
Lev Vygotsky, Soviet psychologist considered the father of social constructivism, that is, that theory that the mind and its functions are originated in culture and in interaction with others and where learning occurs in a specific cultural-historical context. These ideas were taken up by cognitivism and were the bases of the cognitive revolution.
For Vygotsky there are different psychic functions:
- One of them are the lowerthat is, those that we share with the animal kingdom such as memory, attention and perception.
- Others, however, are the psychic functions superiors and they are those that characterize us as human beings, and they are those that we can only achieve through interaction with other human beings, for example selective attention, abstract reasoning, metacognition, insight and mathematical thinking. All of this is mediated by language, which is the main human cultural tool that enables us to think and communicate.
Vygotsky differentiates two levels of development:
- The level of current development of the infant (everything a person can do without problems or help)
- The level of potential development (everything that the boy or girl could reach or do). The distance between current development and potential development is the zone of proximal development, it is this zone in which the infant receives help and collaboration from the adult, an expert or a classmate more advanced than him to achieve learning.
Vygotsky’s theory talks about the human potential or cognitive capacity of the human being, where it is stated that each generation should not start again from scratch, it is not necessary to reinvent the wheel or the fire, each generation can start from knowledge. that the previous generation has already developed. Adults and experts can exercise this borrowing of consciousness that they have achieved through development and learning. In this way we increase our potential.
Vygotsky and constructivism
What makes Vygotsky’s thinking characteristic according to Medina (2007) are the following three points:
- Semiotics.
- The social genesis of consciousness.
- The role of the symbolic instrument as a regulator of cognitive activity.
Through this thought, the development of man and its behavioral explanation with its practice occurs since the constructivist processes are typical of the mental functions where the assimilation of cultural knowledge.
Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of cognitive development
Vygotsky tries to answer the question: how does the child learn?
Learning according to Vygotsky
For Vygotsky, learning means acquiring higher cognitive functions. How does the child acquire these functions? Interacting with the environment that surrounds him, but not only this, but the child, interacts with the environment that surrounds you through a series of tools.
- For example: a magnifying glass, with this magnifying glass you approach a tree and observe it.
In this way you are interacting with your environment but you are using a tool that facilitates interaction with the environment. It is for this reason that Vygotsky also calls his learning as mediated learningbecause the tools that mediate between the child and the environment are generally social or cultural: people or instruments that adults use.
Sociocultural learning
For Vygotsky Culture influences people’s cognitive development. As Savater (1997) refers, the community in which the child is born implies that he will be forced to learn and also the peculiarities of that learning. Savater continues explaining with the article The Super Organic by Alfred L. Kroeber “The distinction that counts between the animal and the man is not that between the physical and the mental, which is only of relative degree, but that between the organic and the social.” Bach, born in the Congo rather than Saxony, had not produced even the slightest fragment of a chorale or a sonata, although we may be confident that he would have surpassed his compatriots in some other form of music.
How do these structures of thought and structures of action develop? For Vygotsky through social activities; he puts emphasis on social for development.
Vygotsky also talks about basic cognitive skills, which are those that develop when we interact with a group, society or our culture. The cognitive skills and strategies that a person will develop are different, which is why the culture and skills of India, China, the United States or any other country cannot be extrapolated.
These basic cognitive skills are attention, memory and language, perception and are transformed through the influence of culture and society into higher thinking functions to be able to solve more complex problems.
Vygotsky tells us about the zone of proximal development, there is what the child can do on his own and what he cannot do on his own. For this, the author says that parents must guide, direct their learning and this is known as scaffolding (it is the support of the adult so that they can guide the child’s learning until they reach autonomy in the specific activity or can solve the problem on their own. only). This is what the teacher does with someone he teaches to play guitar, he is doing a scaffolding so that the child generates autonomy.
The more interactions you develop, the more structures and forms of behavior you will develop, but it cannot be extrapolated to all cultures (a child from Africa will have different cognitive and thinking strategies than an American child).
Vygotsky does a very important job since he emphasizes that learning and cognitive development are achieved through social interaction and that not only can one be intelligent by having an intelligence, but that people who have great abilities have diverse intelligences and have higher cognitive development.
It tells us that this way of thinking and acting is a tool for the person to solve different types of problems. An infant who has less education in an environment that is less rich in stimuli and that helps his personal and educational growth will have fewer tools than an infant who does have a large amount of education, therefore this child who has fewer tools can solve …