Abstract
Since development is always age specific, Vygotsky begins by asking if general laws of development can exist at all. He answers by proposing three of them, all of which emphasize precisely that age specificity: non-homogeneity, dominance, and consequent maximal development of functions. He concludes by demonstrating how the means of development itself develops: the “overthrow” of one function by another is replaced by a more gradual process of redifferentiation.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Korotaeva (2001: 91) notes that in the stenogramme, the word used is вопросу (“question”) for which she substitutes the word выводу (“conclusion”). But the translation “question” seems acceptable here, particularly since it is the word which Vygotsky uses in the next sentence, so we have reverted to the wording in the original stenogramme. Léopoldoff-Martin translates it as “conclusion” (2018: 79).
- 2.
Vygotsky uses the term единая система, which we have rendered as “unitary system”. For the purposes of this lecture, Vygotsky stresses that the components of this unitary system develop at different tempos (e.g. the brain and the nervous system are proportionally larger and closer to its maximal size at birth than the bones and muscles are); even different parts of the same system develop at different rates (e.g. the voluntary nervous system is not as developed at birth as the involuntary). But for clinical purposes, including teaching the child, Vygotsky stresses that these systems work together.
- 3.
This seems to refer to the other course included in the “Lectures on Pedology”, namely “The Problem of Age”.
- 4.
The researcher referred to is the Nazi psychologist Hans Volkelt. Volkelt gave a child milk to drink in a square blue bottle. The child was then offered an ordinary bottle and refused to drink. When the child was offered a square blue bottle alongside an ordinary bottle, the child reached for the former and not the latter. Volkelt concluded that “drinking milk” is a concept that exists in an adult mind, on the basis of abstracting away experiences such as the square blue bottle used in the experiment. But since the child only knows what the child experiences, and what the child experiences is the square blue bottle, we should say that the child is not drinking milk but rather “square-blue-bottled-milk”. See Vygotsky (1998: 225).
- 5.
Korotaeva has массовидный (“mass-like” or “en masse”) but she says that the stenogramme actually has массов воспитательный (“enculturated/cultivated en masse”). See 2001: 97.
- 6.
Here, Vygotsky makes a simple distinction between two types of interfunctional relations: dependent and independent. Dependent relations are relations between the dominant function (in toddlerhood, affective perception) and all the other functions. The dominant function can and does act alone (toddlers see and respond without remembering and without thinking). But the dependent functions cannot and do not act alone (toddlers do not remember or think about completely abstract ideas without any sensory input). Independent relations are relations between dependent functions.
Imagine a toddler and mother meeting a nursery school caregiver for the first time. The mother does not really notice what the caregiver is wearing but instead memorizes the teacher’s name. The toddler is the other way around: she notices exactly what the caregiver is wearing, the sound of the caregiver’s voice, and perhaps even the smell but does not remember the name. When it comes time to go to nursery school the next day, what the child will remember is these perceptions (if the child likes them, the child may run to nursery school, and if the child does not, the child may think of some way of running away!). For the child, but not for the mother, memory and thinking are not independent; they are linked only when and to the extent, they are linked to perceptions.
Memory and thinking are linked, but they are not directly linked—they only function through the dominant function:
- 7.
The Russian term used is максимального внутреннего расчленения which could be translated as “maximal inner disarticulation”. The problem is that this suggests a de-structuration. Actually, what is meant is closer to the very opposite, which is why Léopoldoff-Martin translates the term as “démultiplication”. Vygotsky is describing a new concept of development: not the addition of A + B, but rather the differentiation of As and Bs from some mixed up whole, like ABBA or BAAB and then their relinking into new AB or BA units.
Take, for example, the stratification of infant feeling into thinking and speech. Thinking and speaking can then be relinked into new thinking–speaking and speaking–thinking units in protolanguage. These units are then further differentiated into sounds and meanings and then linked up again through grammar in an even more complex structure in language proper.
The result of this process of subdivision and relinking is actually a more structured, more complex entity, and that is why Lucien Sève has proposed the word “complexification” to describe it (See Vygotskij 2018: 86f). Because “complexification” only gives the outcome of the process, and what Vygotsky is describing here is the process itself, we have chosen to translate this as “maximal internal subdivision”
- 8.
Vygotsky says that this is a “partial” law, meaning both that it is not a general law and also that it is a part—a kind of codicil—of the more general law. As we will see, it is actually not the case that every function has a dominant period: many functions are differentiated by being shifted from one function to another and not be exercising dominance over all the functions.
In the next paragraph, Vygotsky at last formulates this third law and apparently writes it on the blackboard alongside the first and the second laws, the law the uneven, sequential development of functions (the dominance of one function and then another), the law of the hierarchical relation of functions (the dominance of one function by another). The third law is that the use of the dominant function leads to its internal differentiation.
- 9.
The manuscript has познания, which is not a Russian word. Léopoldoff-Martin suggests that it is simply a typo: сознания, “consciousness” is what is meant. See Vygotskij (2018: 87).
- 10.
Léopoldoff-Martin believes that “preschool” is meant here and in the first sentence of the next paragraph as well. Of course, “school age” is also possible, since Vygotsky is simply saying that different functions are differentiated in different age periods. See Vygotskij (2018: 87).
- 11.
Vygotsky doesn’t specify the “foreign word” he has in mind, but Lucien Sève assumes that he means the German term unterordnen, which means to “subordinate”, to “put under”, and to “place in a lower order”. See Vygotskij (2018: 87f).
- 12.
There is a difference between the stenogramme of Vygotsky’s lectures and the printed version here. Korotaeva (2001: 109) replaces the word отражении (“reflection” or “repulsion”) with the more general word отношении (“relation” or “relationship”). The more general word will do, and we have used it. Vygotsky’s point is that this transition happens without attention becoming a dominant function. How is that possible?
Consider a child whose attention is dominated by perception. The child becomes a preschooler, and during this period, learns the alphabet, the numbers, and many names for things. The function of affective perception which once linked memory and attention is now differentiated and replaced by memory itself. Then memory is replaced at the end of preschool. So by subtracting one dominant function after another, the child achieves a relatively pure, differentiated attention—without attention becoming a dominant function. In this way, the functions “repel” each other by having the function which linked them subtracted again and again.
References
Bыгoтcкий Л.C. (2001). Лекции пo пeдoлoгии. Ижeвcк: Издaтeльcкий дoм “Удмypтcкий yнивepcитeт”.
Vygotskij, L. S. (2018). La science du développement de l’enfant: Text pédologiques (1930–1934). Traduits par I. Léopoldoff-Martin. Berne: Collection Exploration Peter Lang.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1998). The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky (Vol. 5). New York: Plenum Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Vygotsky, L.S. (2019). The General Laws of Child Psychological Development. In: L. S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works. Perspectives in Cultural-Historical Research, vol 7. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0528-7_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0528-7_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-15-0527-0
Online ISBN: 978-981-15-0528-7
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)