Bincy M Baby Social science

Seminar on Vygotsky and language

development

LANGUAGE

Language refers to the system of words that people use to express thoughts and feelings to each other

Language Development LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT IS

THE PROCESS BY CHILDREN COME TO UNDERSTAND AND COMMUNICATE LANGUAGE DURING EARLY CHILDHOOD

LEV SEMYONOVICH VYGOTSKY NOV 19 1896-JUNE 11 1934

VYGOTSKY’S VIEWS ON LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

According to Vygotsky language and other cognitive skills are not primarily determined by inborn factors but is a product of activities practiced in the social institutions of culture in which the individual grows up.

The history of the society in which a child is reared and the child’s personal history are crucial determinants of the way in which that individual will think.

Vygotsky’s postulates

Vygotsky’s postulates

Language is a tool for though

t

Language is socially

constructed

Interdependence of thought and language

Vygotsky’s Postulates Language is a tool for thought:• According to him language is tool for organizing

thinking because it bears the concept and it is also the most important tool that mediates our thoughts, feelings and behaviors.

• Language is initially used in interaction between adult and child as a means of communication.

• Gradually it is internalized into a means of the child’s own thinking and control of his own activity.

2. Language is socially constructed: language is fundamentally and

socially constructed activity of meaning-making and communication.

Language develops from social interactions for communication purpose.

3. Interdependence of thought and language: In humans thought and speech develop

independently and function separately. At around the age of two the curves of

development of thought and speech meet and joint to initiate a new form of behaviour,that is when thought becomes verbal and speech becomes rational.

A child first seems to use language for superficial social interactions but at the some point this language goes underground to become the structure of the child’s thinking.

Three stages of speech development• Social speech : in this stage a child uses speech to

control the behavior of others. A child uses speech to express simple thoughts and emotions such as crying laughter and shouting .

• E g . “I want milk”• Egocentric speech: (3-7yrs)in this stage children

often talk to themselves. They speaks out loud in attempt to guide their own behavior. Transition from social activity to a more individualized activity .

• E g . Counting numbers loudly • Inner speech: final stage of speech development.

This allows to direct our thinking and behavior. Once one has reached this final stage they are able to engage in all forms of higher mental functions .

• E g .count in one’s head.

Major events in Language Development

1. Language develops not from the individual to the social but from the social to the individual.

2. The earliest speech of the child is essentially external speech for others and is called as social speech. (not related to intellectual thinking , crying, laughter and shouting)

3. At certain age the social speech of the child gets into egocentric speech (3 to 7 yrs and inner speech (soundless speech).

4. Egocentric speech serves mental orientation to tasks and conscious understanding of the environment . It is the transition from the social activity of children to a more individualized activity.

5. Over time this egocentric speech transforms into inner speech a more internal less vocalized and less readily understood form of self-talk.

6. In the end inner speech separates completely from social speech and vocalization stops altogether . This is the foundation of thought.

7. As the child develops inner speech and meaning moves to the forefront and the phonological element of speech disappears.

8. At the end the meaning aspects of inner speech evolves along with the syntactic changes.

Stages in the development of language and thought

Primitive stage

Naïve stage

Egocentric stage

In growth stage

Stages in the development of language and thought

Primitive stage •Infant possesses mental processes similar to an animal and learns through conditioning.

Naïve stage •Learns to use language to communicate but does not understand symbols(semiotic functioning)

Egocentric stage •Use language as a guide to solve problems(internalized by age 6-7)

In-growth stage •Logical thinking results from internalized speech acquired from social interactions

Vygotsky describes the following broad stages in the development of thought language relationship.

1. The primitive or natural stage. The primitive stage is

characterized by the infant experimenting with sound production . Coos, ga-gas and babble are emitted have no purpose but to explore the baby’s sense of sound.

Primitive stage As babies they goo and gah and cry and babble.

these are examples of the primitive stage of language development. the sounds produced serve no real purpose except to produce the sound and experiment with our new capability. just as a baby laid on his belly may make crawling motions yet not crawl, the baby may also make sounds without producing speech. as the baby does not produce speech, there is also not verbal thought, or internal monologue. this does not mean the baby does not think, it only means that the child has not yet internalized his speech. the verbalization performed at this stage serve no purpose except to practice sound. there is no reason for the child to internalize during this stage.

2. Naïve stage. It is characterized by :(a)The child’s experience with his own

body and of objects and the use of tools.

(b)Increasingly correct use of language structure without the understanding of their logical meaning.

Naïve stage As child begins to speak, he learns how to say words far

before he learns their meaning and function. An example of this is “ball”. To the child this one word can mean a variety of things that is “where is my ball, ”give me the ball” etc…as child develops and gains understanding of new words ,he begins to produce naive sentences like “where ball” and “where is the ball”. The child uses this structures without any understanding of how to put a sentence together or why the words must go in that order. He only knows that when the words are said in that way, others understand his meaning. Understanding of word order comes about before the child learns the logic of how the words fit in that order.

3) Egocentric speech stage/External stage:

it is characterized by : (a) the use of external signs as aids

in the solution of internal problems. (b) counting on the fingers (c) egocentric speech becomes

more and more curtailed and esoteric.

Egocentric stage

During this stage the child begins to use external objects to represent words. This can be characterized by the child using objects or fingers when counting. Another interesting event is the beginning of egocentric speech. The child will talk to himself when there is no one else around and also during play with others. This is the child verbalization of thought.

In –growth stage: at this stage (a)The external operations turn inward.(b)The child acquires ability for

counting in the head.(c)Logical memory develops.(d)Achieve soundless speech.

In growth stage

As the child egocentric speech turns inward, he enters the final stage. He uses the skills he has acquired to perform logical tasks internally. Rather than counting aloud, he will count “in his head” using part of his short term memory. This much faster than verbalizing each thought and just as his initial speech developed with practice, the more internalized thought and logic is used, the better the child can perform.

Factors influencing language development

The child's maturity pattern

Family environment

Childs mental development

Objects around the child

The school

Questions ……

1. According to vygoysky man’s greatest tool for communication is?

1) Education 2)gestures 3)confidence 4)language

2) From the postulates proposed by vygotsky the tool for thought is

1) language 2)mental ability 3)signs 4)memory

3 Language is constructed ___________ ? 1 ) socially 2)mentally 3)physically 4)theoritically

4 The development of thought and language in child is ? 1) dependent and separate 2) independent and separate 3) both equally 4) none of the above5 Why is it told as according to vygotsky language is a

tool for organizing thinking?1) Concept 2) content3) matter 4) thought6 At first a child seems to use language for which

purposes?1) Meaning making 2) communication 3) superficial social

interactions 4) perception 7 Inner speech separates completely from social speech

and vocalization stops altogether.this was the foundation of which of the following?

1)Communication 2)use of language 3)foundation of thought 4)meaning

8 In the semantic (meaning)aspect of innerspeech evolve along with which of the following changes?

1)Language usage 2) sound pattern 3) syntactic 4) egocentric speech9 L S Vygotsky, L and S stand for?1) Lev Semyonovich 2) Lee sanwich 3) Lan Samivonwich 4) Lal Sammyowich10 Which one is not a postulate of vygotsky? 1) language is not a tool for thought 2) language is socially constructed 3) interdependence of language and thought4) language is a tool for thought