Rethinking Vygotskian Cultural-Historical Theory in Light of Pepperian Root Metaphor Theory : Dynamic Interplay of the Organicism and Contextualism

2016

This article examines Vygotskian cultural-historical theory by putting it into dialogue with Stephen Pepper's root metaphor theory. I focus on Vygotsky's insistence on the dialectical unity of the phylogenetic and ontogenetic domains in ontogenesis, which he articulated in his account of how the natural-psychological and cultural-psychological lines of development merge with the emergence of speeching in ontogenesis. I compare Vygotsky's two genetic domains and Pepper's world hypotheses of organicism and contextualism. I argue that Vygotsky transcended what is often thought of as a fundamental dichotomy between organicism and contextualism. In accomplishing this effective reconciliation, Vy…

Dancing with Alternative Lyrics : Integrating Sociocultural, Dialogical, Distributed and Dynamical Conceptualization of Language and its Development …

2016

This paper sets out to chart underlying assumptions and fundamental axioms of an integrative research edifice for studying language and how it is developed over time as a human- and culture-centered and multifaceted phenomenon. Specifically, invoking Vygotskian sociocultural theory, the Bakhtin circle dialogism, distributed language and cognition and dynamic systems theory, it is argued that language is a purposive, multifaceted, complex, dialogical, and dynamic system that emerges distributively across the interpenetrated web of human somatic and brain activities, socio-cultural umwelt, sociohistorically-fashioned artifacts and realized affordances simultaneously and over time. Suggestions…

Book Review : Van Compernolle Rémi A. Interaction and Second Language Development: A Vygotskian Perspective

2017

Book review: de Bot, K. (2015). A History of Applied Linguistics : From 1980 to the Present

2016