PENSAMENTO E LINGUAGEM NAS TEORIAS HISTÓRICOCULTURAL E SOCIOCULTURAL: CONTRIBUIÇÕES PARA O ENSINO DA LÍNGUA MATERNA.

Abstract

The main aim of this study is to examine the development processes of thought and language in Vygotsky s thinking, in an effort to appreciate its contributions towards understanding the teaching and learning of the mother tongue. This choice of theme arose out of two concerns: the first has to do with the precariousness of the mastery of reading and writing skills among Brazilian students, which imposes limits on abilities and skill building in language use as well as learning subject content at all levels of teaching; the second has to do with the fact that there are supposed theoretical and practical differences in the theoretical interpretations of the Vygotsky School in relation to the role of thought and language in the development of cognitive processes and their consequences for teaching the language. Consequently, this study first sought to elucidate Lev Vygotsky s theoretical presuppositions on the interrelations between thought and language and then went on to identify theoretical elements in two different theoretical interpretations of those presuppositions, the historical-cultural theory and sociocultural theory, which can offer theoretical and practical contributions to the teaching of the language. To do so, a bibliographical research was carried out on the original works of L. S. Vygotsky, A. R. Luria, A. N. Leontiev, V. V. Davidov and the followers or interpreters of these works, such as J. V. Wertsch, M. Cole, B. Rogoff, S. Chaiklin and M. Hedegaard. Other secondary sources were also used in order to clarify concepts such as thought and language, social interaction, mediation, internalization and the zone of proximal development. The literature review led to the conclusion that, despite the fact that there are different understandings of the central concepts of Vygotsky s thinking, both tendencies make significant contributions towards improving the teaching-learning process of Portuguese in the school, provided that the vygotskian idea of language as organizer and planner of the thought processes through the formal learning of the standard language is maintained.