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Vygotsky and Second Language Acquisition

Journal: The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics

Manuscript ID: Draft

Wiley - Manuscript type: article

Date Submitted by theAuthor:

Complete List of Authors: Mahn, Holbrook

Keywords:sociocultural language studies, Language and Social Interaction,

Second Language Acquisition

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Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics



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Vygotsky and Second Language Acquisition

Holbrook Mahn

University of New Mexico

[email protected]

Word Count – 5778

Reference Word Count – 306

The far-reaching influence that the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1986-1934) has

had on SLA research is represented in this volume by studies which emphasize the important

role played by semiotic mediation as a means to social interaction in social, cultural, physical,

and historical contexts. While Vygotsky did not write extensively about second language

acquisition, he provides a foundation for analyzing the processes involved in learning a second

language through his analysis of how humans acquire and develop the ability to communicate

through language and, in so doing, create the mental system that makes humans human. His

study of the interrelationship between thinking processes – perceiving, processing, organizing,

and storing information from the environment and using it to guide action – and language

processes – using signs/symbols to make and communicate meaning in social interaction – can

be used to understand the interrelationship between thinking and language processes involved in

communicating meaning through a second language.

The system of meaning created by the unification of thinking and language processes was

at the center of Vygotsky’s work and constitutes the foundation upon which rise the concepts for

which he is best known, including the zone of proximal development, social interaction,

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sign/symbol use to mediate activity and the consequent development of higher psychological

processes, inner and private speech, play, and the role of the social/cultural/historical situation of

development. Many of the authors in this volume use these concepts to guide their investigations

into all aspects of second language development.

Not as well known is the fact that Vygotsky used the concept system of meaning to study the

development of the human psyche by analyzing higher psychical processes such as logical

memory, voluntary attention, and verbal perception in relation to language use and development.

Vygotsky’s ultimate goal was to reveal the origins and development of human consciousness.

The analysis of mental systems was the central focus for the decade-long research Vygotsky

conducted with colleagues in experimental studies and theoretical analysis. He conceived of

consciousness as a system of systems and to begin his investigation of consciousness he analyzed

the system of meaning that is created through the unification of thinking and language processes.

Nevertheless, a focus on Vygotsky’s concept of system of meaning has not been widely explored

in second language research informed by sociocultural theory, nor in sociocultural studies in

general. The analysis of this concept is central to the reconceptualization of Vygotsky’s work

described in “Research Methods and Sociocultural Approaches in Second Language

Acquisition” in this volume and in Mahn (2008). In this article I describe the development of

Vygotsky’s analysis of the system that results from and in turn develops language use and then

describe how this analysis might illuminate the processes involved in second language

acquisition and development.

Internal System of Meaning

A fundamental concept for sociocultural studies is a focus on the role of signs/symbols in

the mediation of human activity. “Vygotsky’s fundamental theoretical insight is that the higher

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forms of human mental activity are always and everywhere mediated by symbolic means”

(Lantolf, 1994, p. 418). Vygotsky acknowledged that mediation was central to his theoretical

analysis, but at a meeting with his closest collaborators near the end of his life, he emphasized

that the focus of their work was not mediation in and of itself but rather the internal system of

meaning created through mediated social interaction. He recognized that they had focused on the

sign and the sign operation in their earlier investigations, but in doing so “we ignored that the

sign has meaning” (1997a, p. 130) and consequently did not study the development of meaning.

“We proceeded from the principle of the constancy of meaning, we discounted meaning” (1997a,

p. 133). He noted a prevalent error in the linguistic and psychological theories of his time in their

approaches to meaning – taking the development of meaning for granted, viewing meaning as

stable and unchanging. In these theories the constancy of meaning is “given as the starting point

which terminates the process as well” (p. 132) and therefore the origins and the course of

development of meaning are ignored. In that same meeting Vygotsky clarified his conception of

meaning:

Meaning is not the sum of all the psychological operations which stand behind the

word. Meaning is something more specific – it is the internal structure of the sign

operation. It is what is lying between the thought and the word. Meaning is not

equal to the word, not equal to the thought. This disparity is revealed by the fact

that their lines of development do not coincide. (Vygotsky, 1997a, p. 133)

Focusing on the systemic nature of consciousness, Vygotsky looked at the development of

meaning as a process, one that is shaped by its systemic relationship with other psychological

functions, processes, structures, and systems. The system of meaning is part of larger systems –

the human psyche and human consciousness – and therefore, “The structure of meaning is

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determined by the systemic structure of consciousness” (1997a, p. 137). (I use system of meaning

– meaning as an internal system of the sign operation – instead of structure of meaning to

describe the internal mental system that is created through the unification of thinking and

language processes in communicative social interaction. Structure can imply something

anatomical and does not capture the dynamic and systemic nature of meaning.) Unlike other

psychologists of his time who examined mental entities by isolating them in their external

manifestations or by conceptualizing them as being separated from other mental entities,

Vygotsky analyzed “the systemic relationships and connections between the child’s separate

mental functions in development” (1987, p. 323) and conceived of the relationships between

functions as constituting “a psychological system” (1997a, p. 92).

In addition to conceptualizing the system of meaning created through the sign operation

as a psychological system, Vygotsky recognized other systems of meaning based on

mathematics, music, art, aesthetic response, volition and affect, among others. Because his main

focus was on the system that results from the unification of language and thinking processes,

“system of meaning” in this article refers to that particular system. In describing the system of

meaning I do not rely on secondary sources, but rather draw on Vygotsky’s writings, particularly

those which explain: his methodological approach; his analysis of predominant theories about the

relationship of thinking and speaking; his phylogenetic analysis of the development of thinking

and speaking; his examination of the structure of generalization; his description of the

development of a system of concepts; and his analysis of times of qualitative transformation in a

child’s development including: the development of higher psychological processes, periods of

crisis, and the development of conceptual thinking.

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In his use of the concept mental system Vygotsky emphasized that the relationships

among mental functions determine the character of the system. The functions in and of

themselves might not qualitatively change, but the relationships among them go through

transformations leading to different stages of development. “Such functions as voluntary

attention, logical memory, higher forms of perception and movement, which thus far have been

studied in isolation, as separate psychological facts, now, in the light of our experiments, appear

essentially as phenomena of one order – united in their genesis and in their psychological

structure” (Vygotsky, 1999, p. 38). These functions are “internally connected with the

development of the symbolic activity of the child” (p. 39).

Vygotsky saw a dialectical relationship between language and thinking processes with

each process shaping and being shaped by the other in an internal mental system that resulted

from their unification. Vygotsky devoted most of his final work, Thinking and Speech, to

describing investigations into the origins and nature of this unification and the new entity created

by thinking and language processes – verbal thinking. The essence of this entity is not fully

conveyed in its translation into verbal thinking, because verbal in the adjectival position tends to

minimize the nature and development of thinking processes as a precondition for and result of

the development of language. To try and minimize the confusion that the English translation

introduces and to emphasize that Vygotsky was examining the unification of the thinking and

language processes and the unity that they form, I will use the acronym TLPU (thinking and

language processes unity) to refer to the verbal thinking/mental speaking, thinking/language

unity that is the central focus of Vygotsky’s work.

In examining the processes through which both the human species and individuals

create(d) internal mental systems as they developed the ability to receive and produce signs to

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communicate meaning, Vygotsky made the analysis of the origins and nature of the TLPU the

central focus of his investigations. He conceived of mental activity as a process that is organized

as a system with other systems, in the development of which there are times of qualitative

change during which fundamental, essential transformations in the TLPU and its relationship to

other mental functions occur. The stage that individuals have reached in the development of their

systems of meaning will influence their second language acquisition and development.

Methodological Approach

The methodological approach Vygotsky developed to study the TLPU can also help

inform investigations into the processes involved in acquiring and developing communicative

capacity in a second language. For his approach, Vygotsky (1998) relied on Marx and Engels’

work, which sought to find the essence of the phenomenon being investigated by analyzing its

origins – the forces that brought it into existence – the forces that guide its development and

bring about change that leads to qualitative transformation, and the forces that take it out of

existence. They emphasized finding laws that govern the change or motion of the phenomenon

being investigated and used the notion of the unification of distinct processes to explain

development. (See “Sociocultural Approaches to SLA Research” in this volume for further

discussion on Vygotsky’s methodological approach.)

To find the essence of the unification of thinking and language processes Vygotsky

sought an aspect of this unification that was primary, basic, irreducible, essential, and yet still

maintained the essence of the whole – the TLPU. “What then is a unit that possesses the

characteristics inherent to the integral phenomenon verbal thinking [the TLPU] and that cannot

be further decomposed? In our view, such a unit can be found in [ znachenie slova] the inner

aspect of the word, its meaning” (1987, p. 47). In his investigation of znachenie slova, Vygotsky

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examined the social origins of the ability for both the human species and individual to use

language to communicate, as well as analyzing the origins and development of the internal

mental systems that are necessary for and result from this communicative ability. He drew on

research studies on higher primates’ social interactions and the communicative capacities that

facilitate those interactions. He also examined studies that investigated the nature of human

social groupings still in early stages of historical human development.

This laid the foundation for the analysis of znachenie slova, but because of the way

znachenie slova has been translated into English, Vygotsky’s investigation of it is often not

accounted for in interpretations of his work. The Russian znachenie means meaning and slova

means word , but Vygotsky made clear that he was using slova as a synecdoche (Kozulin, 1990,

p. 151) to refer to language use as a whole, as in “in the beginning was the word” (Vygotsky,

1987, p. 284). Because znachenie slova is translated into English as word meaning the focus in

interpretations of Vygotsky’s work has generally been on the meaning of words, on the external

use and relationships of words, and on the role of words in semiotic mediation; as such the

relationship with thinking processes tends to be overlooked. As a consequence, Vygotsky’s

concept of the internal system of meaning has been neglected, which is a motivating factor for a

reconceptualization of Vygotsky’s work. The concept that Vygotsky held central to his

theoretical framework and that provided a focus for his research – znachenie slova – should be

central to reconceptualizing his work.

In Thinking and Speech Vygotsky analyzed znachenie slova from three perspectives: its

origins (genetic); the development of and interconnection to psychological functions and

processes related to it (structural); and its psychological activity and motivating factors

(functional). Through this analysis, Vygotsky was able to “disclose the internal essence that lies

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https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234755357_Vygotsky's_Psychology_A_Biography_of_Ideas?el=1_x_8&enrichId=rgreq-afa08568-4f7b-4726-a9ed-bcff35bf1e6e&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzIzMzg1ODYxOTtBUzoxMDQ4NTc1NTM4NjY3NTVAMTQwMjAxMTM5NzM1OQ==



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behind the external appearance of the process, its nature, its genesis” (1997b, p. 70). This was an

important part of Vygotsky’s approach to second language studies as well. In his article on “The

Question of Multilingual Children” Vygotsky writes that in setting up studies on the bilingual

child a prerequisite is “to descend from the surface, from taking into account external traits and

indicators, and to penetrate deeply, to take into account internal structures of the processes that

are directly involved in the speech development of the child” (Vygotsky, 1997b, p. 257).

As a preliminary step in the study of the TLPU’s internal structures, of its qualitative and

quantitative characteristics, categories, and concepts, Vygotsky argued that, “through an analysis

of available information on phylogenesis and ontogenesis we must indentify a point of departure

for research on the genesis of verbal thinking” (1987, p. 40). He did this first through a critical

analysis of the theories of Piaget and Stern on the relationship between thinking and speaking;

then he examined the “theoretical issues concerning the genetic roots of thinking and speech” (p.

40) – the origins of symbolic representation in early humans and the comparison and contrast of

human thinking and language use with higher primates’ thinking and communication abilities.

Vygotsky examined the origins of znachenie slova in an individual as a process that has a

foundation in the infant’s physical brain and in the elementary thinking processes with which

humans are born and which develop in infancy – mechanical memory, involuntary attention,

perception, etc. He described the ways in which these elementary mental functions are shaped by

the sociocultural situation of development into which children are born and by their social

interactions in those situations. How an infant’s developing perception, attention, and memory

lead to communication between the child and caretakers, with the latter ascribing communicative

intent to the infant’s gestures and sounds. Through this early social interaction children develop

communicative intentionality and the initial use of symbols to convey meaning – key elements in

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the acquisition of language. A qualitative transformation in social interaction takes place as

communication of meaning is accomplished through the use of signification and the development

of language use, and through the ability to generalize in “the creation and the use of signs”

(1997b, p. 55).

It turns out that just as social interaction is impossible without signs, it is also

impossible without meaning. To communicate an experience of some other

content of consciousness to another person, it must be related to a class or group

of phenomena. As we have pointed out, this requires generalization. Social

interaction presupposes generalization and the development of verbal meaning;

generalization becomes possible only with the development of social interaction.

(1987, p. 48)

Two basic functions of speech – reflection of reality in a generalized way and communicative

social interaction – are important components of the system of meaning and thus of the TLPU.

“Therefore, it may be appropriate to view znachenie slova not only as a unity of thinking and

speech, but as a unity of generalization and social interaction, a unity of thinking and

communication” (1987, p. 49).

Vygotsky ascribed a central role to play in the development of a child’s ability to

generalize. “Our experiments bring us to the conclusion that play is the basic path of the child’s

cultural development and specifically the development of his sign activity” (1999, p. 52). The

ability to generalize, which is developed through play and communicative social interaction, is

manifest internally in the structure of generalization that a child develops, a structure that

provides the foundation for the system of meaning. In Thinking and Speech, Vygotsky (1987)

describes in depth the development of this structure of generalization as the child acquires

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language. In tracing the development and changes in the structure of generalization, Vygotsky

described the different modes of thinking that create “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” (p. 135). Vygotsky emphasized the processes necessary to acquire these

modes of thinking – voluntary attention, partitioning, comparison, analysis, abstraction, and

synthesis – essential for the development of the TLPU and the structure of generalization. In

examining the origin of the structure of generalization, Vygotsky studied the initial unification of

the thinking and speaking processes as a child through interaction with an adult applies a word to

a fused or amalgamated visual image. “In his perception, thinking, and action, the child has a

tendency to connect the most varied elements, elements that may have no internal connections.

Elements may sometimes be connected on the basis of a single impression. The result is an

undifferentiated, fused image” (1987, p. 134), a syncretic heap or group, based on the syncretic

relationship between young children’s perception and their activity.

Vygotsky called the next stage in the development of the structure of generalization

“complexive thinking” in which the child includes objects in a complex based on empirical

connections. He described five different phases through which children’s forms of thinking move

in complexive thinking. These forms of thinking are always in a dialectical relationship with the

changing content of thinking – this dialectical relationship is key to understanding Vygotsky's

claim that znachenie slova’s development includes times of qualitative transformations between

syncretic and complexive thinking and between complexive thinking and conceptual thinking.

In his analysis of the transformation from complexive thinking to conceptual thinking,

Vygotsky focused on the origins and development of the pseudoconcept , which originates in a

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child and an adult both focusing on an object designated by a word, and in that shared interactive

contact they are able to communicate; however, they use different forms of thinking to arrive at

the point where they are using the same word for an object. “The child thinks the same content

differently, in another mode, and through different intellectual operations” (1987, p. 152). The

child and the adult have different modes of thought as the foundation for their systems of

meaning. “The child and adult understand each other with the pronunciation of the word ‘dog’

because they relate the word to the same object, because they have the same concrete content in

mind. However, one thinks of the concrete complex ‘dog’ [the pseudoconcept] and the other of

the abstract concept ‘dog’” (p. 155).

Vygotsky, drawing on the work of Paulhan, claimed that children have their own sense of

the dog. As a word is internalized sense plays a big role in how that word fits in with the child’s

system of meaning. Sense both develops and is developed by the system of meaning. Vygotsky

described sense (smysl) as an important component in the system of meaning with the more

stable lexical meaning as an essential but subordinate part of sense. “In inner speech, we find a

predominance of the word’s sense over its meaning” (1987, p. 274). The process through which a

word and its meaning change through internalization is key to understanding inner speech.

Vygotsky detailed the process in which meaning through social interaction is incorporated into

an individual’s sense and the way in which “the meaning of the word in inner speech is an

individual meaning, a meaning understandable only in the plane of inner speech” (p. 279). There

are always going to be degrees of divergence among meanings that have developed in a

particular social setting and the sense of words or concepts incorporated into an individual’s

system of meaning. Vygotsky explained that “[t]o some extent, [sense] is unique for each

consciousness and for a single consciousness in varied circumstances” (p. 276). The sense of a

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word is never complete, but evolves with the system of meaning of which it is a part through

activity in the social situation of development. Sense as “the aggregate of all the psychological

facts that arise in our consciousness as the result of the word” (pp. 275-276) is a key component

in the system of meaning. “Ultimately, the word’s real sense is determined by everything in

consciousness which is related to what the word expresses…[and] ultimately sense depends on

one’s understanding of the world as a whole and on the internal structure of personality” (p.

276).

Essential to this process is the lifelong, dynamic, dialectic interplay between meaning and

the sense that develops as a part of the system of meaning. Sense and the system of meaning both

develop through the internalization of meanings in social interaction. Sense develops from the

very beginning of a child’s life with the trial-and-error period of the syncretic images, through

the development of everyday and scientific concepts, through adolescents' growing conscious

awareness of their own thinking processes – conceptual thinking – to adults' life-long learning. In

this process there is an ongoing interaction between, on the one hand, the system of meaning and

the plane of sense within it and, on the other, the existing, relatively stable, external social

meanings. The way in which social meaning is transformed as it is internalized can be seen at the

level of single words in the difference between the individual’s sense of a word and common

usage based on dictionary meanings. The word mother , for example, evokes for every individual

a very personal sense. At the same time there is a common understanding of the sociocultural

meaning of the word denoting both a biological and cultural relationship. This divergence exists

in both the internalization and externalization processes. Language can never fully express an

individual’s sense of a concept or thought.

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Connected to an individual’s system of meaning and social systems of meaning are an

individual’s system of concepts and social systems of concepts. Children’s interaction with adults

using the pseudoconcept, as described above, lays the groundwork for the next transformation in

conceptual development – the move from concrete to abstract thinking, from complexive to

conceptual thinking. Although the foundation for concepts is laid when children begin to acquire

language, they do not use concepts systematically until they reach adolescence. As the child

begins to isolate and abstract separate elements, and “to view these isolated, abstracted elements

independently of the concrete and empirical connections in which they are given” (Vygotsky,

1987, p. 156), the system of meaning undergoes a qualitative transformation with the child’s use

of conceptual thinking. “The concept arises when several abstracted features are re-synthesized

and when this abstract synthesis becomes the basic form of thinking through which the child

perceives and interprets reality” (p. 159). Developing an “internal meaningful perception of their

own mental processes” (1987, p. 190), thereby gaining conscious awareness of their thinking

processes, is the most important psychological process in the development of conceptual

thinking in adolescence. This introspection “represents the initial generalization or abstraction of

internal mental forms of activity” (p. 190). Vygotsky argued that this generalization and

abstraction can only be accomplished through the process of developing a system of concepts,

concepts related to the social expectations of adolescents, concepts that are introduced externally

primarily through school, concepts that are organized into systems and interconnected with

multiple other systems – what Vygotsky referred to as scientific concepts. These concepts are

internalized in a system of concepts, which, as Vygotsky stated, becomes similar to the system of

meaning during this transition from complexive to conceptual thinking. “[P]sychologically, the

development of concepts and the development of znachenie slova are one and the same process”

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(1987, p. 180). Recognizing that the development of meaning and concepts takes place through

the interrelationships of systems within systems and understanding where a student is in that

process are important for teachers, whether working with school-aged or adult second language

learners. The recognition that an adult learner has developed a system of meaning in their native

language as described above by Vygotsky is an important initial step when working with adults

learning a second language.

Vygotsky and Second Language Acquisition and Development

Vygotsky argued that learning a second language “must be studied in all its breadth and

in all its depth as it affects the whole mental development of the child’s personality taken as a

whole” (1997b, p. 259). Analyzing the concept of the system of meaning was key to

understanding this mental development for Vygotsky. He advocated that studies of second

language learners take “into account the whole aggregate of social factors of the child’s

intellectual development” and that they use the genetic method to trace both this development

“with all of its multifaceted qualities” (p. 257) as well as to explore the complexity of this

process, which depends “on the age of the children, on the nature of the meeting of the one

language with the other and finally, what is most important, on the pedagogical effect on the

development of the native and the foreign language” (p. 257). His aim was “to take into account

internal structures of the processes that are directly involved in speech development of the child”

(p. 257). Even though he laid out key criteria for studying second language acquisition,

Vygotsky did not conduct research in this area himself.

He did use the processes involved in learning a second or a foreign language to draw an

analogy with the processes involved in the development of concepts in systems or scientific

concepts as both are marked by a level of conscious awareness not present in learning one’s

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native language or acquiring everyday, spontaneous concepts. “The development of scientific

concepts begins in the domain of conscious awareness and volition. It grows downward into the

domain of the concrete, into the domain of personal experience.” (1987, p. 220). Everyday

concepts develop in the opposite direction, from the concrete to the more abstract, toward

conscious awareness and volition. “The link between these two lines of development reflects

their true nature. This is the link of the zone of proximal and actual development …. Scientific

concept restructure and raise spontaneous concepts to a higher level, forming their zone of

proximal development” (p. 220).

Vygotsky compared the relationship between the paths of development of concepts in

systems (scientific) and spontaneous concepts with the relationship that exists between the

acquisition of a native language and a second language:

The child learns a foreign language in school differently than he learns his native

language He does not begin learning his native language with the study of the

alphabet, with reading and writing, with the conscious and intentional

construction of phrases, with the definition of words, or with the study of

grammar. Generally, however, this is all characteristic of the child’s first steps in

learning a foreign language. The child learns his native language without

conscious awareness or intention; he learns a foreign language with conscious

awareness and intention. (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 221)

The level of conscious awareness that children have of their own thinking processes will affect

their acquisition of a second language. In drawing a comparison between learning to write and

learning a second language, Vygotsky argued that both processes involve a level of conscious

awareness that is not present when children learn their native language. When they enter school,

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children begin to develop a conscious awareness of their attention and memory, but they do not

have a conscious awareness of their own thinking processes that they acquire in adolescence.

Where children are in the process of development of their internal systems of meaning is related

to the level of conscious awareness they have developed.

Vygotsky outlined a number of other differences between the processes of learning a

native language and learning a foreign language including affective and emotional concerns, and

concluded by stating, “The child already possesses a system of meanings in the native language

when he begins to learn a foreign language. This system of meanings is transferred to the foreign

language” (1987, p. 221). Vygotsky did acknowledge that children who acquire two languages

from infancy develop two relatively distinct systems of meaning through each language. Citing a

study by Ronget, he stated, “The result of the experiment showed that the child acquired both

languages in parallel and almost completely independently of each other” (1997b, p. 255).

Along with Vygotsky’s notion of the system of meaning being important in looking at

second language learners, his theory of child development helps us understand “the whole mental

development.” While Vygotsky did not live long enough to produce a fully articulated theory of

child development, he did provide a theoretical framework, especially in the fifth volume of his

Collected Works entitled Child Psychology. His focus was on times in a child’s development

when the interdependent relationships between psychological processes undergo a qualitative

transformation, times for which Vygotsky used the word “crisis.”

The crisis of the newborn separates the embryonal period of development from

infancy. The one-year crisis separates infancy from early childhood. The crisis at

age three is a transition from early childhood to preschool age. The crisis at age

seven is a link that joins preschool and school ages. Finally, the crisis at age

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thirteen coincides with the turning point in development at the transition from

school age to puberty. (“The Problem of Age,”1998, p. 193)

These transformations, which result from and bring about qualitative changes in the relationships

among psychological processes, dramatically affect the development of children’s systems of

meaning and also affect the acquisition of a second language. Vygotsky described the

characteristics of each of these qualitative transformations and the ways in which social

interactions, language, and needs and motives change in each of the periods. He used the concept

of perezhivanie – how people experience and make meaning of their experience – to analyze

these qualitative changes, because “the essence of every crisis is a reconstruction of the internal

experience, a reconstruction that is rooted in the change of the basic factor that determines the

relation of the child to the environment, specifically, in the change in needs and motives that

control the behavior of the child” (1998, p. 296). The changes in these internal relationships also

affect children’s experiences of their sociocultural environment and the meaning that they make

of these experiences. Vygotsky called this experience of meaning – “one of the most complex

problems of contemporary psychology and psychopathology of the personality” (p. 290).

“Thus, in concept development, the movement from the general to the specific or from the

specific to the general is different for each stage in the development of meaning depending on

the structure of generalization dominant at that stage” (p. 226). Understanding where children are

in their concept development can help us understand their process of acquiring a second

language.

Conclusion

The fundamental concept that all mental activity is part of an interconnected system of

systems is central to all of Vygotsky’s work. In approaching second language research, he

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stressed the importance of studying the interconnectedness of the processes of second language

acquisition with processes involved with acquiring one’s native language and with the processes

at play in the development of the human brain/mind unity – the development of the human

psyche. Although he neither wrote about nor researched second language acquisition extensively,

Vygotsky did provide a theoretical framework and a methodological approach to guide research

into second language acquisition. Unfortunately, essential aspects of his theoretical framework

and methodological approach have been overlooked by researchers who rely on his approach and

by interpreters of his work. I explore reasons why this has occurred in more depth in Mahn

(2009), looking at: 1) translation issues, 2) the repression of his ideas by the Stalin-led

bureaucracy, 3) the lens provided by Leontiev and Activity Theory when Vygotsky’s work was

rehabilitated following the Khrushchev revelations in 1956; 4) Vygotsky’s reliance on the

methodological approach developed by Marx and Engels and the effect of different ideological

perspectives on this reliance; and 5) a dependence on secondary sources and interpretations

rather than primarily on Vygotsky’s actual writings. For these reasons, among others, an

essential aspect of Vygotsky’s theoretical framework – the system of meaning that is created

through language use – znachenie slova – through the unification of thinking processes and

language processes – has often been overlooked.

In Mahn (2008), I provide an overview of this essential concept – znachenie slova – that

provided the focus for Vygotsky’s investigation of the relationships between thinking and

language use in the development of human consciousness. Without exploring the essence of

Vygotsky’s work – meaning as a system within systems in the “thinking body,” – there has been

a tendency in SLA research to extrapolate a concept of Vygotsky’s from his overall theoretical

framework and use it to study some aspect of human development. This isolation is problematic

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because it leads to overlooking an essential aspect of Vygotsky’s work – his investigation of

human development as a system within dynamic, physical, social, cultural, natural, and historical

systems at the center of which are the processes and interactions through which language is

acquired and a system of meaning is created.

Vygotsky continually emphasized the need to go beyond appearance, beyond the surface

manifestations of a phenomenon, and to look at its interconnectedness with other systems and its

process of development from its beginnings to its end. That advice aptly applies to the study of

his work. In critiquing Vygotsky’s theoretical framework, sociocultural researchers have often

relied more heavily on interpretations of his work than on his actual writings. Doing an in-depth

analysis of his work as a whole, examining his conception of the interconnectedness of mental,

physical, social, cultural, and historical systems in constant states of change, yields an

understanding of the essence of his theoretical framework. He emphasized that this framework,

like all phenomenon, changes and develops with new findings, new knowledge, and new ways to

investigate mental functioning and its material base. Vygotsky drawing from Spinoza saw the

unity of the material and the mental in the “thinking body.” This unification created the human

psyche – which included mental systems based in the brain and the chemicals and electrical

impulses involved in the intake of information from the external world and it perception,

processing, storing, and accessing to guide activity.

In order reconceptualize Vygotsky’s theoretical framework, it is necessary first to

understand the foundation of that theoretical framework and its development. Such an

understanding is essential in using this framework to guide investigations of second language

acquisition and can best be achieved by reading Vygotsky’s his major work Thinking and Speech

in its most complete form (1987) (translation issues notwithstanding) rather than abridgements of

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that work (1962, 1986). His work is complex and challenging, but his theoretical framework and

the methodological approach that flows from it can make a significant contribution to the

analysis of language acquisition and its role in the development of the human mind/psyche.

See Also

Mahn. H. & Reierson, S. “Research Methods and Sociocultural Approaches in Second Language

Acquisition”

References

Kozulin, A. (1990). Vygotsky’s psychology: A biography of ideas. Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Press.

Lantolf, J. (1994). Sociocultural theory and second language learning. The Modern Language

Journal 78(4) 418-420.

Mahn, H. (2009). Vygotsky’s methodological approach: A blueprint for the future of

psychology. In A. Toomela & J. Valsiner (Eds.). Methodological Thinking in

Psychology: 60 Years Gone Astray? (pp. 297–323). Charlotte: NC: Information Age

Publishing.

Mahn, H. (2008). Vygotsky’s Analysis of the System of Meaning. Paper presented at the 2008

ISCAR Conference, San Diego, CA, September 2008. Available at:

http:www.unm.edu/~hmahn/publications/som

Vygotsky, L. S. (1962). Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1986). Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press

Vygotsky, L. S. (1987). Problems of general psychology. The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky:

Vol. 1. Including the volume Thinking and Speech. New York, NY: Plenum.

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Vygotsky, L. S. (1997a). Problems of the theory and history of psychology . The collected works

of L. S. Vygotsky: Vol. 3. New York: Plenum Press.

Vygotsky, L.S. (1997b). The history of the development of higher mental functions. The collected

works of L. S. Vygotsky: Vol. 4. Problems of the theory and history of psychology . New

York: Plenum.

Vygotsky, L.S. (1998). Child psychology. The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky: Vol. 5.

Problems of the theory and history of psychology. New York: Plenum.

Vygotsky, L.S. (1999). Scientific legacy. The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky: Vol. 6.

Problems of the theory and history of psychology. New York: Plenum.

Suggested Readings

Vygotsky, L. S. (1993). The fundamentals of defectology (Abnormal psychology and learning

disabilities. The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky: Vol. 2. New York: Plenum Press.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1994). The Vygotsky reader. R. van der Veer & J. Valsiner (Eds.).Cambridge,

MA: Blackwell.

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