Vygotsky's dynamic conception of the thinking–speaking relationship

Abstract

In much of the educational literature, thinking is taken to be the result of conceptual/cognitive frameworks that generate thought; speaking is taken to be the process by means of which thought is made available to others. Lev Vygotsky, however, conceives of thinking and speaking as two mutually constitutive processes that continuously evolve at microgenetic, ontogenetic and cultural–historical levels. In this paper, I use a best-case scenario to exhibit thinking and speaking in process: university lectures in an advanced science course by a 40-year veteran professor. I show how even in this case, learning cannot be explained other than by a dynamic mutually constitutive thinking–speaking relation in which the two moments also change.

Keywords:

• unit analysis
• thinking/speaking
• dynamic approach
• dialectics
• genesis

Acknowledgments

This project was supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.