Vygotsky’s Analysis of Children’s Meaning Making Processes

Abstract

Vygotsky’s work is extensive and covers many aspects of the development of children’s meaning-making processes in social and cultural contexts. However, his main focus is on the examination of the unification of speaking and thinking processes. His investigation centers on the analysis of the entity created by this unification - an internal speaking/thinking system with meaning at its center. Despite the fact that this speaking/thinking system is at the center of Vygotsky’s work, it remains little explored. This article relies on Vygotsky’s writings, particularlyThinking and Speech, to describe his examination of the speaking/thinking system. To analyze it he derives the unit -znachenie slova - “meaning through language.” InThinking and Speech Vygotsky describes the origins and development ofznachenie slova as a unit of the speaking/thinking system. He also details his genetic, functional, and structural analysis of the processes through which children internalize meaning in social interaction and organize it in an internal, psychological system. The foundation of this system is the child's ability to generalize by using symbolic representation in meaningful communication. Vygotsky’s analysis of the structure of generalization in the speaking/thinking system is central to his examination of how children make meaning of their sociocultural worlds.