Although there are substantial differences between Piaget's and Vygotsky's t's, they are not opposed since they share a conception of development that distances itself equally from empiricist and rationalist conceptions traditional. In his book Thought and Language (1934), Vygotsky provides a highly original and revolutionary approach to the traditional problem of the relations between thought and language. His fundamental suggestion is that the two capacities are not related in the same way throughout the child's development. The term "egocentric language"had been introduced by Piaget.
In his book The Language and the Thought in the Child (1923) Piaget pointed out that it was common for young children who were doing a task to speak without addressing anyone in particular. VygotskyHowever, he was able to see what was 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 activities of the child It is important to note that Vygotsky does not identify thought with internalized speech (this would be the position of Watson).
Vygotsky admits the existence of a prior and independent thought of language, but defends that, from a certain moment in development, language merges with language. thought through a process of internalization linked to the regulatory function, giving rise to "verbal thinking", on the one hand, and an "intellectualized language" on the other. Language begins with 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 ever recognizing the importance of this behavior. From egocentric speech, according to Vygotsky, inner speech develops.
Vygotsky intends 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 from objective and quantifiable methods.
The vygostskyan view Development can be characterized as "historical-cultural".
- It is conceived as the process by which individuals are appropriating 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 real development, which is manifested in what the child is able to do on their own and, the level of potential development that is reflected in what the child can do with the support and guidance of another capable.
This does not imply 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 evolutionary calendar of biological maturation common to the spice (phylogenesis), but in interaction with the socio-cultural line of development (relative to social and cultural learning mid)
In this process of particular importance mediated instrumental activity: cultural resources are conceived as symbolic instruments, internally oriented (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, all of which, from the specifically ontogenetic point of view, always involves two planes complementary:
- The one related to the mediating role of others, as promoters or facilitators of ongoing processes, of progress in learning.
- The one related 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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