From Social Interaction to Higher Psychological Processes

Vygotsky’s notions of speech, language and thought have recently begun to receive more attention in the west, but some of his basic distinctions are not well understood. The first part of this paper deals with some of the confusions that have arisen due to inaccurate translation and misunderstanding of Vygotsky’s general theoretical framework. The focus of this analysis is on Vygotsky’s distinction between language and speech. The second part of the paper deals with the emergence of selfregulative capacities in ontogenesis – a central theme in the work of Vygotsky and his followers. It is argued that their ideas about selfregulation can be properly understood only if we conduct a genetic analysis that goes back to the origins of self-regulation. These origins are to be found in adult-child interaction where adults provide the ‘other-regulation’ necessary for a child to carry out a task. We argue that it is by coming to function in communicative settings involving other-regulation that the child can develop self-regulative capacities. These self-regulative capacities are seen as emerging as the result of the child’s taking over the communicative and regulative responsibilities formerly carried out by the adult. One of Vygotsky’s most interesting ideas in his study of the ontogenesis of higher mental functions is what he called the ‘zone of proximal development’. He defined it 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). He proposed this idea in his attempt to elucidate the relationship between learning and mental development. Rather than restricting his account of mental development to assessing James V. Wertsch Department of Linguistics Northwestern University Evanston, IL 60201 (USA) Fax 41 61 306 12 34 E-Mail karger@karger.ch www.karger.com © 2008 S. Karger AG, Basel 0018–716X/08/0511–0066$24.50/0 Accessible online at: www.karger.com/hde 1An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Working Conference on the Social Foundations of Language and Thought held at the Center for Psychosocial Studies, Chicago, Ill., September 8–10, 1978. The author is indebted to Michael Cole, Maya Hickmann, Benjamin Lee, Addison Stone, Stephen Toulmin and Bernard Weissbourd for comments and criticisms of the ideas included in this paper, and to Nancy Budwig, Gillian Dowley, Joan McLane and Phyllis Schneider for their assistance in collecting and analyzing data for the mother-child interaction study. The author wishes to thank the Spencer Foundation for support in the preparation of this paper.