Lev Vygotsky

Thinking and Speaking


Written: 1934
Source: Thought and Language.
Publisher: The M.I.T. Press, 1962;
Translated: Edited and translated in part by Eugenia Hanfmann and Gertrude Vakar, and in part by Norris Minnick;
Transcribed: Andy Blunden.


Full text in PDF or Word.doc format.


Table of Contents:

Author's Preface
Chapter 1 - The Problem and the Approach
Chapter 2 - Piaget's Theory of Child Language and Thought
Chapter 3 - Stern's Theory of Language Development
Chapter 4 - The Genetic Roots of Thought and Speech
Chapter 5 - An Experimental Study of Concept Formation
Chapter 6 - The Development of Scientific Concepts in Childhood
Chapter 7 - Thought and Word


“Each word is therefore already a generalisation. Generalisation is a verbal act of thought and reflects reality in quite another way than sensation and perception reflect it.”
Problem & Approach


Jean Piaget:

Biographical sketch
Construction of Reality in the Child, 1955
Comment by Piaget on Vygotsky's Thinking and Speaking, 1962
Genetic Epistemology, 1968

Further reading:

Psychology and Marxism Subject Archive
The Work of the Cerebral Hemispheres, Pavlov 1924