You hold in your hands a new book. Professor Dorothy Robbins dedicated it to one of the aspects of the cultural heritage of the famous psychologist L. S. Vygot sky. His activity (deyatelnost) was multifaceted. He had input into different fields of psychology: its methodology, psychology of art, pathopsychology, the psy chology of child and adolescent development, pedagogical psychology, general psychology, speech psychology, and other fields. Within his various activities he enriched not only psychology, but a variety of different sciences/academics pedagogics, defectology, psychiatry, literary critical theory, and linguistics. Some famous scientists feel that he left his mark in fields of various scientific areas that did not exist during his lifetime-such as psycho linguistics, semiotics, and cybernetics. Many psychologists and linguists conduct research in the spirit of his ideas that are contained within his approach of cultural-historical theory of human psy chological development, all created by Vygotsky as early as the 1920s and 1930s; these ideas have become popular among scientists in different countries in the last decades. The use of Vygotsky's theories, even beyond the frame of psychol ogy, turns out to be fruitful. I hope that this new book by Dorothy Robbins will help readers understand the deeper meaning of the scientific/academic research undertaken by my father and the scientific results that were obtained by him.

Inhalt

1. Background Information on Vygotskian Theory and Vygotsky and Man.- Days and Ages.- 2. Overview of L S. Vygotsky's PsychologicalPhilosophical Theory.- Consciousness.- Lower Mental Processes and Higher Mental Processes.- Domains: Phylogeny, Ontogeny, Sociocultural History, Microgenesis.- 3. ToolsPsychological ToolsInternalizationSigns.- Tools.- Psychological and Technical Tools.- Internalization.- Signs.- History.- ThoughtWordWord MeaningsLanguage.- Word Meaning and Sense.- Inner Speech.- Concept Formation.- Scientific and Spontaneous Concepts.- Summary of Thought, Word Meaning, Language, and Concept Formation.- Dialectics.- Dialectics and Spinoza.- Problems Regarding Vygotsky's Understanding of Dialectics.- Aesthetics.- Criticisms of Vygotsky and Responses.- Vygotsky's Contributions.- 4. Chomskyan Linguistics and Vygotskian Semiotics.- American Linguistic Theory and Second Language Acquisition (SLA).- Rationalism (Chomskyan Perspective).- Innatism (Chomskyan Perspective).- Competence (Chomskyan Perspective).- Vygotskian Understanding of Rationalism, Innatism, Competence.- Rationalism (Vygotskian Perspective).- Innatism (Vygotskian Perspective).- Innatism and the Fodor Paradox.- Relativity (Representationalism and Perception).- FodorVygotskyWhorf (Continuation of Innatist Discussion).- Perception (Related to Innatism).- Competence (and Mental RepresentationsVygotskian Perspective).- 5. Universal GrammarSLAGrammar from a Vygotskian Position.- Vygotskian Grammar (L1 and L2).- 6. Conclusion.- References.