Language in Cultural-Historical Perspective

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511499937.007

5 - Language in Cultural-Historical Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 August 2009

Edited by

Ed Elbers and

Peter E. Jones: Affiliation:
Department of Communication and Media, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, United Kingdom
Bert van Oers: Affiliation:
Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam
Wim Wardekker: Affiliation:
Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam
Ed Elbers: Affiliation:
Universiteit Utrecht, The Netherlands
René van der Veer: Affiliation:
Universiteit Leiden

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Summary

From the point of view of the tasks of a science of language, the cultural-historical approach to the human mind is not a metatheory or philosophy standing above the sciences in the sense of a set of general ideas to be applied to or confirmed in specifically linguistic material. It is, rather, a particular science whose findings and implications, by the nature of its subject matter, cannot but interconnect in intimate fashion with those of a linguistic science. From this perspective, the task before a science of language is, therefore, to “prove this systematic connection” with the achievements of the cultural-historical tradition “both in general and in particular” (Engels, 1975). Indeed, this is the way Vygotsky and his colleagues approached their own scientific work. For them, the cultural-historical approach to the mind was itself developed as an attempt to “prove the systematic connection” between human psychological processes and the processes of sociohistorical emergence and evolution identified and studied by Marx and Engels and expressed theoretically in their “materialist conception of history.” It is this concrete knowledge of the dynamic of human social life as well as of the nature and development of thinking with which students of language must reckon and in relation to which they must make their own distinctive contribution.

The materialist conception of history, and the cultural-historical theory with it, understands that humanity – all human faculties, practices, knowledge, and relations – is a work in progress.

Type: Chapter
Information: The Transformation of Learning
Advances in Cultural-Historical Activity Theory
, pp. 76 - 99

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511499937.007 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2008

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