Thought and Language / Edition 2

by Lev S. Vygotsky, Alex Kozulin, Gertruda Vakar

Overview

A new edition of a foundational work of cognitive science that outlines a theory of the development of specifically human higher mental functions.

Since it was introduced to the English-speaking world in 1962, Lev Vygotsky's Thought and Language has become recognized as a classic foundational work of cognitive science. Its 1962 English translation must certainly be considered one of the most important and influential books ever published by the MIT Press. In this highly original exploration of human mental development, Vygotsky analyzes the relationship between words and consciousness, arguing that speech is social in its origins and that only as children develop does it become internalized verbal thought.

In 1986, the MIT Press published a new edition of the original translation by Eugenia Hanfmann and Gertrude Vakar, edited by Vygotsky scholar Alex Kozulin, that restored the work's complete text and added materials to help readers better understand Vygotsky's thought. Kozulin also contributed an introductory essay that offered new insight into Vygotsky's life, intellectual milieu, and research methods. This expanded edition offers Vygotsky's text, Kozulin's essay, a subject index, and a new foreword by Kozulin that maps the ever-growing influence of Vygotsky's ideas.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780262517713
Publisher:	MIT Press
Publication date:	08/28/2012
Edition description:	revised and expanded edition
Pages:	392
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Lev S. Vygotsky (1896—1934) studied at Moscow University. He began his systematic work in psychology at the age of 28, and within a few years formulated his theory of the development of specifically human higher mental functions. He died of tuberculosis in 1934. Thought and Language was published posthumously that same year.

Alex Kozulin began his investigation of Vygotsky's theory at the Moscow Institute of Psychology and continued it in Boston and then Jerusalem. He is the author of Psychology in Utopia: Toward a Social History of Soviet Psychology (MIT Press, 1984), Vygotsky's Psychology: A Biography of Ideas, and a coeditor of Vygotsky's Educational Theory in Cultural Context.

Table of Contents

Foreword Alex Kozulin (2012) ix

Vygotsky in Context Alex Kozulin (1986) xxv

Note on the Title Ixxiii

Author's Preface Ixxv

1 The Problem and the Approach 1

2 Piaget's Theory of the Child's Speech and Thought 13

3 Stern's Theory of Language Development 61

4 The Genetic Roots of Thought and Speech 73

5 An Experimental Study of the Development of Concepts 103

6 The Development of Scientific Concepts in Childhood: The Design of a Working Hypothesis 155

7 Thought and Word 223

Notes 273

References 295

Index 299