Dialogue, Difference and Voice in the Zone of Proximal Development

Abstract

In recent years many similarities, especially centering on the notion of dialogue, have been noted in the writings of Mikhail Bakhtin and Lev Vygotsky. Although both attend to the dialogical character of speech and thought and the role of dialogue in the social constitution and genesis of mind, we argue that their understandings of dialogue are different in important ways. We consider the implications of such differences for a broader cultural-historical view of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) by focusing on three issues: dialogue, otherness and voice. These issues lead us to consider extending the domain of the ZPD to incorporate Magistral, Socratic and Menippean dialogues. These dialogues constitute three regions on a continuum with centripetal Vygotskian and centrifugal Bakhtinian poles, and each emerges at a different point of development of the ZPD. This broader perspective on the ZPD provides a medium for cultural and historical change as well as for individual socialization.

Getting Vygotskian about theory of mind: Mediation, dialogue, and the development of social understanding

“…Vygotsky did not explicitly extend his remarks on the dialogicality of external social speech to the semiotically mediated, internalized cognitive processes that derive from it (Cheyne & Tarulli, 1999;Tappan, 1997;Wertsch, 1980). As such, this idea retains a particular status as a thread that can be drawn out of a certain interpretation of Vygotsky's writings, without representing a view that he explicitly endorsed.…”

“…Bakhtin's ideas about the sociocultural situatedness of utterances in everyday language-that is, their ability to betray the position of the speaker with respect to the physical and social worlds-have proved particularly fruitful for psychologists working within the sociocultural paradigm (e.g., Cheyne & Tarulli, 1999;Hermans, 2002;Hermans & Kempen, 1995;Tappan, 1997;Wertsch, 1980;. Specifically, an assimilation of the Bakhtinian concepts of voice and dialogue can provide a powerful extension of Vygotsky's theory, capable of speaking to some of the issues of most concern to modern developmental psychologists (Fernyhough, 1996;Fernyhough & Russell, 1997 For present purposes, the most important aspect of Bakhtin's work is his characterization of dialogue as involving a simultaneous accommodation of multiple perspectives (Fernyhough, 1996;Holquist, 1990).…”

Inter-student interactions and student learning in health and physical education: a post-Vygotskian analysis

“…Vygotsky understood learning itself to be a social enterprise where meaning is constructed in social relations and dialogue (Samaras and Gismondi 1998;Cheyne and Tarulli 1999). He proposed the notion of a zone of proximal development (ZPD) as the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the actual level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers.…”

Colaboração posta em circulação: etiqueta vazia em práticas discursivas educacionais?

“…Fundamentados nos estudos de Vygotsky (1978;1997;1998;1999) e de seus colaboradores, pesquisadores contemporâneos se voltam ao entendimento da cognição em relação ao envolvimento dos sujeitos em práticas sociais, mediadas pela cultura e situadas nos espaços históricos (por exemplo, Hasan (mimeo); Cole;Engeström, 1993;Engeström, Y., 1994Engeström, Y., , 2002Engeström, R., 1995;Cole, 1996;John-Steiner, 2000;Holzman, 2002;Rogoff, 2003;Cheyne;Tarulli, 2004; para citar alguns).…”