The rise of Soviet sociolinguistics from the ashes ofVölkerpsychologie

Abstract

Nineteenth-century Russian philology was dominated by an approach derived from German Völkerpsychologie. Language and social consciousness were viewed as embodiments of "national-popular psychology." The shortcomings of this approach were becoming apparent at the end of the prerevolutionary period, but it was only in the 1920s that the hegemony of Völkerpsychologie was decisively challenged. Völkerpsychologie was attacked in the name of "objective psychology," and concrete studies of the relationship between language and social structure were carried out. By the end of the 1920s, völkerpsychologische ideas were subsumed into a new and progressive form of sociological linguistics.

Vygotsky, Cognitive Development and Language

“…Hardcastle (2009) bases his conjectures on Vygotsky having been "schooled in German humanities, philology and philosophy", and claims that Vygotsky "was also indebted to thinkers of the European Enlightenment, especially Bacon, Locke and Condillac" (p. 181). Brandist (2006) explores the influence of Humboldt-inspired Völkerpsychologie [Cultural Psychology] on Soviet sociolinguistics. Cole (1996) updates the concept of cultural psychology from the present-day perspective of the interplay of social and cultural components in human cognition.…”

Живая Память В Исследованиях П.И. Зинченко (Ретроспект И Проспект) (На Английском Языке)

“…Humboldt, G. Shteynal, A.A. Potebnya and G.G. Shpet (see Bibikhin, 2007;Brandist, 2006;Van der Veer, 1996;Zinchenko V., , 2007a. In light of their studies that were neglected by psychology during many years we are dealing not with the usual opposition between the uncertain external and internal, but with external and internal forms of the whole, which is a "meta-form."…”

Reflex theory in a linguistic context: Sergej M. Dobrogaev on the social nature of speech production

“…2 See Wozniak (1997) for more details. 3 For a detailed account of the influence of the Wundtian tradition on Russian intellectual history see Brandist (2006). 4 Ivan Mikhajlovich Sečenov (1829Sečenov ( -1905, one of the most significant Russian pre-Revolutionary physiologists, famous for his pioneering work in the areas of bio-chemistry of blood, electro-and neurophysiology as well as his later ideas on phychophysiology, which suggested an objectivistic explanation of the nature of psychological processes.…”