Cognition, Symbols, and Vygotsky's Developmental Psychology

Cognition, Symbols, and Vygotsky's Developmental Psychology Author(s): Dorothy C. Holland and Jaan Valsiner Source: Ethos, Vol.
16, No. 3 (Sep., 1988), pp. 247-272 Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Anthropological Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/640487 . Accessed: 26/01/2014 07:45
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Cognition, Symbols, and Vygotsky's
Developmenta Psychology
DOROTHY C. HOLLAND and JAAN VALSINER
Because anthropology is predicated upon the centrality of the social and the cultural in human life, anthropologies of the individual must account for the collective nature of the individual. Psychologies inspired by Marxist thought share a similar task and, at least in one case, have originated an account of cognitive and affective development that appeals to anthropologists. Developed in Russia in the 1920s and 1930s by L. S. Vygotsky and his associates, including A. R. Luria, this approach grants society a key role in the development of personality. Human development is characterized, in a phrase, as the transformation of the interpersonal into the intrapersonal. The "cultural-historical" school of psychology, as this approach is called, began to attract attention outside of the U.S.S.R. in the 1960s, when translations reached anthropologists and psychologists in the United States and in Europe. Although translated works (Vygotski 1929, 1934, 1939, 1962, 1978, 1981a, 1981b) are limited, a
DOROTHY C. HOLLAND is Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. JAAN VALSINER is Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
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neo-Vygotskian perspective has begun to flourish (Holland, in press; Hood, Fiess, and Aron 1982; Ijzendoorn and van der Veer 1984; Rogoff and Lave 1984; Rogoff and Wertsch 1984; Wertsch 1985). Our purpose here is to contribute to this perspective by affiliating what we see as one of Vygotsky's more useful constructs, meWe models. with the anthropological notion of cultural diatingdevices, argue that placing these concepts in tandem brings Vygotsky's ideas more in line with recent conceptualizations of culture and corrects an unfortunate tendency toward a unilinear view of cognitive evolution. We suggest that the Vygotskian school of psychology in turn brings a much needed social developmental perspective to anthropology and especially to cognitive anthropology. We begin by describing Vygotsky's concept of mediating device and the developmental process whereby these symbols are used first in social activity and then in mental activity. MEDIATING DEVICES In the latter half of the 1920s Vygotsky (1956, 1960) began to write about mental tools or devices that influence cognition and affect. He referred to these tools as "helping means" (in Russian sredstva).These means (or activities, as Vygotsky vspomogatel'nye with his emphasis on process might prefer) are psychological debetween one's mental states and processes and vices for mediating one's environment. Below we refer to these means as "mediating devices."1 For Vygotsky mediating devices were signs (znaki in Russian; "symbols" in contemporary anthropological terminology) that function in the mental world as tools do in the physical world. Humans arrange and organize their physical worlds with the aid of tools; analogously, they arrange and organize their mental worlds with the aid of symbols. Vygotsky formulated his thoughts in opposition to the stimulusresponse psychology of his day. For him human psychology rested upon the active construction and use of symbols and so, differed qualitatively from nonhuman psychology. Thanks to their production of, and facility with, tools and symbols, humans can not only modify the environment physically, but they can also modify its stimulus value for their own mental states. Nonhuman animals are much more restricted, certainly in their ability to manipulate their
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environment physically, but especially in their ability to alter the environment's symbolic value for themselves. Humans can affect their own cognition and behavior in a way that animals cannot. A typical mediating device is constructed by assigning meaning to an object or a behavior. This symbolic object or behavior is then placed in the environment so as to affect mental events. Vygotsky (1960:102) used the example of tying a knot in a handkerchief to remind oneself of something. The knot is given meaning for the purpose of organizing a mental event, remembering. Similarly, the dieter is using a mediating device when he tapes a picture of an obese individual to his refrigerator door; the purpose of the image is to affect his intentions about the refrigeratorand its contents. Another example, described by Saxe (1982), comes from a New Guinea counting system where body parts are assigned the meaning of different quantities. These symbols are used to affect thought about and the recall of amounts. In devising his concept of mediating device, Vygotsky drew from Engels' ideas about the role of tool-making and the use of tools in the history of the human species. Vygotsky was excited as well by anthropological accounts of mediating devices from different cultures. Engels' writings led Vygotsky to see an analogy between tools and signs; cross-cultural accounts of the modification of external objects into psychological means-to-an-end assured Vygotsky that the analogy could be fruitfully applied. The descriptions available to him at the time from the work of Levy-Bruhl, Thurnwald, and Taylor proved to Vygotsky (1930) that human beings frequently use culturally constructed means to control their own psychological processes. Vygotsky especially liked examples of mnemonics. He cited these techniques-from elaborate objects used by messengers in traditional cultures for remembering messages, to the contemporary Westerner's knot in her handkerchief as a reminder of something important-to show that mediating devices signal a turning point in human cultural history: the transition from the useof one's memcontrol over it (Vygotsky 1930:83). ory to active Although Vygotsky stressed the construction of "higher psychological functions," particularly thinking in situations of recall, the idea of mediating devices is appropriate far beyond the domain of humans' control over their memory and even their problem-solving and inferencing. Luria (cited in Cole 1985:149), for example, pre-
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sented a case of the mediation of will. Vygotsky (1984:379) discussed the development of a "logic of emotion." Through signs and words children learn to talk about, compare, classify, and thus manage their emotions. Even more familiar to us are popular notions and some studies of artifices for modulating emotion. Arlie Hochschild's book, TheManaged Heart,describes devices that the friendly Delta stewardesses use to control their anger at obnoxious passengers: They purposely imagine, for example, that the passenger has undergone a traumatic event or tell themselves that the irritating passenger is behaving childishly because of his fear of flying (1983:24-27). Another area of mental control achieved through signs is that of social identity. Although sociolinguists have not employed the concept of mediating device, they have described many cases of the management of a sense of social identity through linguistic variants. Labov (1972), for example, described the development of a linguistic marker,or, as we would prefer, mediating device on Martha's Vineyard. Following increasing influxes of tourists and summer visitors, the natives of the island began to exaggerate certain phonological features of their speech as a means of signaling their social affiliations and differences to themselves and others. Vygotsky saw these tools for the self-control of cognition and affect as supremely social and cultural. Mediating devices are part of collective meaning systems that are products of history. It is true that individuals constantly construct and reconstruct their own mediating devices, but most of their constructions are not original. They have been learned in the course of social interaction with others who in turn have learned the devices from others. Forge's (1970) account of a New Guinea group, the Abelam, provides a clear description of the socially embedded process of learning mediating devices. He describes Abelam initiation rituals, especially the paintings that are prominent in these rituals, and the resulting meanings that the paintings come to have for the initiates. The Abelam child begins by playing a very small part in the intiations of older cohorts. As time passes, the neophyte takes on increasingly complex roles that revolve around the paintings and the fundamentals of Abelam social organization that the paintings encapsulate for the older Abelam. Gradually the new participant goes beyond simply enacting the ritualistic behaviors involving the paintings and comes to use the paintings to organize his understand-
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ings of Abelam social life. Through enacting the roles in the initiation ritual, the participant experientially learns the symbolism of the paintings and they come to evoke powerful cognitive and emotional reactions from him.
LANGUAGE: THE PROTOTYPICAL MEDIATING DEVICE
For Vygotsky, words2 constitute the prototypical mediating device. Language is a collective and historical creation that one learns in the course of interacting with one's fellows and eventually incorporates as a primary tool for organizing cognition and affect. At first, the child simply imitates the movements and sounds he sees and hears around him as just another part of a behavioral routine. The senses (smysl) of the words are predominant; the associated emotional context and intonation of the utterance dominates. At some point, the child begins to recognize that those around him attribute meaning to his sounds and movements. Eventually he determines the meanings (znachenie) of the words and finally comes to use the words to organize his own thinking (see also Luria 1981:47-53). Vygotsky provides the example of the child's acquisition of pointing as a meaningful gesture:
When the mother comes to the aid of the child and comprehends his/her movement as an indicator, the situation changes in an essential way. The indicatory gesture becomes a gesture for others. In response to the child's unsuccessful grasping movement, a response emerges not on the part of the object, but on the part of another human. Thus, other people introduce the primary sense into this unsuccessful grasping movement. And only afterward, owing to the fact they have already connected the unsuccessful grasping movement with the whole objective situation, do children themselves begin to use the movement as an indication. The functions of the movement itself have undergone a change here: from a movement directed toward an object it has become a movement directed toward another human being. The grasping is converted into an indication. Thanks to this, the movement is reduced and abbreviated, and the form of the indicatory gesture is elaborated. We can now say that it is a gesture for oneself. However, this movement does not become a gesture for oneself except by first being an indication, i.e., functioning objectively as an indication and gesture for others, being comprehended and understood by surrounding people as an indicator. Thus, the child is the last to become conscious of his/her gesture. Its significance and functions first are created by the objective situation and then by the people surrounding the child. The indicatory gesture initially relies on a movement to what others understand and only later becomes an indicator for the child. [1981a: 161]
In brief, reaching begins for the child as a utilitarian movement toward an object in the environment. It is regarded by others as an
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action, pointing. Eventually the child incorporates or interpersonal internalizes the meaning of the movement. The gesture has become an intrapersonaltool as well. In the view of the cultural historical school the individual commonly develops mediating devices in this manner. The sensory object is first encountered in interaction; it is simply a part of an interactional routine. Only gradually does the device become a symbol that is incorporated or internalized into intrapersonal processes. THE RELATIONSHIP OF DEVICE AND ACTIVITY Vygotsky died at the age of 37 from tuberculosis. Leontiev, an important member of the cultural historical school, continued the work by analyzing the socially created contexts of human behavior. Some scholars attribute the roots of "activity theory," as the conceptual framework is called, to Vygotsky; others argue that it was not present even in rudimentary form in his ideas (Davydov and Radzikhovskii 1985; Wertsch 1981).3 Whatever the historical genealogy of "activity theory," its development and contemporary importance do attest to lacunae in Vygotsky's notion of context. In the following sections, we discuss the articulation of device and activity and the importance of interpretations of context. Although we use the term "activity," we do not rely upon "activity theory" because we are interested in cultural components of activity that have not been developed in detail in that theory (however, see Hundeide 1985).
Loss OF AWARENESS AND THE "FOSSILIZATION" PROCESS
In many situations the mediating device and the context of use are difficult to separate. The user may come to employ the device automatically without thought. Judging from Hochschild's description, the training of Delta stewardesses produces such a situation. The training produces what Vygotsky might label okamenelost' poa fossilized state of behavior.4 Fossilized behavior arises vedenia, when a mediating device has been incorporated to the point that there is no longer any awareness of using the device to modulate thinking or feeling. The resulting "fossilized behavior" retains only limited remnants of its developmental history (Vygotsky 1960:137). The Delta stewardesses are taught techniques for controlling their anger in flight attendants' school. Eventually the stewardesses lose
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consciousness of employing the techniques and in time lose awareness even of the initial surge of anger. The stewardesses come to the point that they no longer feel anger toward irritating passengers; they are no longer aware of imaging the passenger as a child or counting to ten, but the effects are present-in many cases, they feel no anger. Likewise, it is difficult for most of us to imagine having to decide whether we will use words as a medium for organizing our thinking or to recall the processes by which we as children acquired language as a means of mediating thought. Similarly, in history, groups take up new mediating devices, some of which become central to shaping the information and the processing of information in the society. Societies incorporate the use of script for the recording and transmission of information and knowledge. Curriculum vitae come to be the way to get to know other people. Ceremonial items such as fine mats in Samoa or armbands in the Trobriands come to be primary ways to understand an individual's or a group's prestige. Agencies adopt measures such as costbenefit analysis for assessing the worth of government projects. Groups acquire electronic media for maintaining historical records. Eventually these new devices may become so often relied upon in the society that they set the parameters of the task; what there is to know about a person is listed in her c.v. and the value of a new government project is its economic costs and benefits.
DEVELOPMENTAL AND CROSS-CULTURAL OF MEDIATING VARIATION DEVICES IN THE INCORPORATION
Although mediating devices may become so incorporated into the way of doing a task in a given culture that the device and the task cannot be disentangled, it is clear that, over the development of an individual and the history of a society, the device and the task are not always merged. In the case of language, the child constructs, through speaking, senses of words and only later narrows down the
meanings to those of the adult speakers (Vygotsky 1962:146). Likewise, over time, the child acquires the use of other mediating devices such as numerals to understand quantity, scripts as signs to imagine
situations that a writer is trying to communicate, and clothing as a means of affecting mood. Similarly, in history, groups devise and incorporate new mediating devices. The old means for forming evaluations of government projects, for instance, are displaced, over time, by cost-benefit analysis or some other new means.
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There is a period in development and in history when the task or activity and the mediating device are not amalgamated and the dialectic between the mediating device and the task may be studied. The historical track of the interaction is important for understanding the eventual amalgamation. What might a researcher ignorant of the techniques learned in air flight school conclude about stewardesses who seldom feel anger at irritating passengers? Their processes of emotion control have become "fossilized." Would the researcher be likely to realize the degree to which the stewardesses modulate their emotions? Becker's (1963:41-58) account of learning to use marijuana provides another demonstration of the importance of studying the development of an individual's use of a mediating device-in this case, a narcotic agent intended to control mood. He argued that the novice smokers he studied not only learned the techniques for ingesting the drug from others but also, and perhaps more important, the meaning and purpose of the activity. The novices did not automatically recognize the sensations that the experienced marijuana smokers associated with the drug, nor did the novices tend to interpret these sensations as pleasurable. They had to be trained and encouraged to do so. Without a study such as Becker's one might suppose that the smokers' highs were simply the invariant consequences of ingesting marijuana. But the control of mood that the smokers achieved was not simply a result of the physiological effects of the drug. The mediating device-the marijuana cigarette-mediated in a context-a culturally interpreted context that the novices had to learn. Together the device and the context of use resulted in the particular kind of mood control achieved by the smokers. Furthermore,mediating devices are not incorporated in the same manner everywhere;cultural and individual differences come about through differences that occur in the process of incorporation. Cole and Griffin (1983) recently published an analysis of the process of learning to read. They describe a reading problem that clearly illustrates differences in the incorporation of the same mediating devices-in this case, printed text. One set of readersthose considered successful by the school-consider a printed text to be a set of symbols and conventions used by an author to describe a situation, a message, a story, an argument for a reader. They regard the printed words as a means to help the reader gain an un-
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derstanding of the author's message. Less successful readers encounter the same mediating device, the printed text, and may understand the script well enough to identify words, but they have come to conceptualize the goal of reading differently. For these latter readers the task of reading is to say the words or phrases aloud and to answer questions about the words and phrases that the teacher asks. They regard the text as a mediating device to help them "read" aloud and think up answers that will satisfy the teacher. These children sound like they are reading sentences, but they can read "John hung himself," and by later remarks indicate that they have not really paid attention to the meaning conveyed by the sentence. In the remedial intervention-shaped from a Vygotskian perspective-the teachers dispensed with reading aloud. Instead they set up a sort of skit in which the participants, including the less successful readers, took roles in asking the type of questions that successful readers ask themselves as they use a text to understand the author's message: "What is the main point in this section?" "What is the author trying to describe here?" "What does this word mean?" Eventually, the children's reading improved; supposedly they had internalized the questions they were acting out in the interaction and thus had learned to use the text for a differentpurpose. Supposedly their understanding of the task was altered to be more in line with that of successful readers (see Brown and Ferrara 1985:279, 300, for references to related studies). Another study reveals yet another interpretation of the task of reading and the use of script. McDermott (1974) described a school with several student factions. He argued that some of the students intentionally learned notto read because they wished to show affiliation with one group of students and not the other. In their school, script had acquired a social signaling function that had little to do with its mediating value for discerning the author's message; reading had become a mediating device for modulating a sense of belonging to one of the student factions. For these students the important point of reading was not to understand the author's message or even to answer the teacher's questions, as in the example from Cole and Griffin above, but rather to signal group affiliation. Like the teenager who ignores shoelaces as a means of keeping his shoes laced and instead thinks of them (in their untied state) as signaling to himself and others that he's "cool," the potential of script for mediating
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ideas may be ignored in favor of its potential for mediating social affiliation and social identity. The point to be drawn from these examples is that mediating devices operate in relation to a task, tasks that are open to different interpretations. The mediating device does not fully determine its context of use and vice versa. Written text does not in itself determine how a child will conceptualize the point of reading. Nor does the child's understanding of the point of reading fully determine how he or she will be affected by alteration of details of the mediating device such as the form of the print or the style of the author. Marijuana, as Becker's account suggests, does not in itself determine the effects it will be used to achieve. Nor does the user's purpose fully determine the effects. Purpose may alter the effects of the drug and the drug may affect purpose. A device and the interpretation of context are independent at least at points in development. Eventually the behavior may become fossilized-the drug is always used in the same way to achieve the same outcomes. But before that happens there are many possibilities. An analogous case can be made for cultural development on a grand scale. The advent of literacy-the use of script as a mediating device-has been argued to bring about important changes in the patterns of thought represented in a society (Ong 1982; see Goody 1977 and Scribner and Cole 1981 for reviews). But does literacy bring invariant consequences? Are the tasks to which it is applied always the same? Vygotsky himself seemed to argue for unilinear cognitive evolution, as we discuss below, when he refrained from discussing the different ways by which the invention (or introduction) of literacy in a culture reorganizes thinking in a multiplicity of ways. In line with our argument about the interaction of device and context, Scribner and Cole (1981) have seriously challenged the invariability of consequences of literacy. They carried out a case study of the Vai of Liberia, a people who use several different scripts, one of which is script the Vai invented for their own language. Literacy for the Vai is confined to a small number of tasks such as letter writing; their interpretation of the tasks for using a script differs from that of literate Americans, for example. Especially for those Vai who have learned one or more scripts at home but who have not attended school, the consequences of literacy are not what would be predicted by most scholars of literacy. Again the Vai case suggests that a me-
diating device does not fully determine how it will be used; cultural interpretations of the task play a role in determining how it will be used and, thus, the consequences of its incorporation. CULTURAL MODELS Vygotsky did not propose a label for what we have been referring to as "cultural interpretations of the task." In fact, we suspect that he may have sometimes neglected the interpretation of the task or the context of use of the mediating device and so was led to an erroneous conclusion, which we discuss below. For their part, anthropologists in cognitive studies have a construct for "culture," but they lack a label for "mediating device." Following, we discuss "cultural models," their relationship to mediating devices, and the benefits to be gained by anthropologists from interrelating the two concepts. In anthropological accounts, individuals interpret situations according to learned collective models of the world.5 Cognitivists, of course, study these models as they are grasped by individuals. In recent formulations, these cultural models are described as consisting of simplifying assumptions (more technically, "interpretive schemas") that individuals have learned to make about the world or some portion of it. This taken-for-grantedknowledge provides the background against which individuals set their goals, make their plans, try to manipulate their environment, anticipate what others will do and describe their experiences. A mundane example of the latter can be given with a story situated in a restaurant. If one tells a fellow American about an experience in a restaurant and happens to refer to paying the cashier, one need not tell the listener what was being paid for-the storyteller knows that the listener knows that food has been ordered, served, and is now being paid for. People interpret contexts and the use to which mediating devices can be put in these contexts on the basis of relevant cultural models-perhaps of restaurants, of intimate male-female relationships, social support, marriage, the human mind (see Holland and Quinn 1987, for examples)-which they have learned.6 The dieter who pastes the picture of an overweight person on his refrigeratordoor is trying to affect his own behavior within a world no doubt defined by cultural models from which he has learned about the nature of obesity, its dimensions, its causes and its consequences. He may have placed
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the image there to turn himself from the refrigeratorcompletely; to turn himself from the leftover cake, but not the raw carrots; from immoderate servings; or from whatever in his interpretation, as given by the cultural models he has learned, is the cause of unwanted obesity. The picture does not define the specific actions to be taken or avoided; the cultural model-cued by the device-does.
CULTURAL MODELS AND MEDIATING DEVICES
Since cultural models are learned devices that aid individuals in organizing and managing their thoughts and feelings, they are mediating devices in a general sense. However, we find it useful to think of cultural models as contrasting with a more limited meaning of "mediating device." We have been careful in this paper to restrict "mediating device" to circumscribed, tangible activities or objects of sensory dimensions-an Abelam painting, a frightening masked figure in Murik society (Barlow 1985), a marijuana cigarette, a printed text, or the stewardess's activity of counting to ten.7 In contrast "cultural models" refers to a complex of mental representations, to understandings of and assumptions about a piece or part of the world. In the example of the dieter, the mediating device is the picture, the cultural model is the complex of understandings, evaluations and expectations that the dieter has about obesity. The model fleshes out the dieter's notions of the meaning of fat and ways to lose weight; the picture helps the dieter to manage his dieting behavior. Another example can be drawn from Quinn's description of an American cultural model of marriage. The cultural model of marriage includes the notion of sharedness; a real marriage is shared. Her informants told her about various sensory representations of sharedness including the activity of holding hands in public (Quinn n.d., 1987, personal communication). The cultural model of marriageis a set of shared beliefs and understandings about sharedness, permanency, mutual benefit, need fulfillment and so forth; holding hands in public is a tangible, sensory activity important to at least one of Quinn's informants-because it mediates or evokes a feeling of sharedness. In many respects what we are calling mediating devices are referredto by other anthropologists as symbols. Are we simply pointing out that symbols are reflected in the cultural-model studies of cognitive anthropologists? Why not refer to holding hands or pictures of obese people or Abelam paintings as symbols? Why bring
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in the concept of "mediating device" and the cultural-historical school of psychology? We prefer to label hand-holding by Americans and the paintings of the Abelam "mediating devices" because Vygotsky's concept of individuals highlights the role of these symbols in the development and societies. Through a Vygotskian lens, significant points of articulation between symbols and cognitivist views of culture become clear. First, Vygotsky's account of mediating device suggests how symbols encountered in social life become incorporated into cognitive models. From his perspective, a symbol's evocative power grows in proportion to its role in mediating the development of cognition and affect. And, conversely, the saliences of particular cultural models in mental life are determined, at least in part, by encountering symbols associated with them. Second, the cultural-historical school's emphasis on development and dialectics encourages us to follow individuals and individual societies over time as they incorporate new mediating devices. Models and mediating devices feed back upon one another, creating an enduring dynamic that informs our understanding of the nature of cultural models and symbols. As suggested above and discussed in more detail below, these points have implications for some conundrums in cognitive anthropology as well as
in Vygotsky's own thinking.
SYMBOLS AND COGNITION

Vygotsky's notion of mediating device connects symbols as they are encountered in social life to symbols as cognitivists find them in mental life. When they function as cognitive and affective aids, symbols become internalized mental tools. As Abelam children grow up, for example, they internalize or incorporate an understanding of their society that is mediated by the paintings. In the process, the symbol acquires a metonymic function.8 The paintings come to stand for, or bring to mind, a whole complex of feelings and thoughts about the society. Lakoff (1987) and Quinn and Holland (1987) describe metonymy as characteristic of the way in which cultural knowledge is mentally organized and alluded to in talk about the world. People allude to their cultural models by referring to those parts of the model that by convention stand for the whole. Lakoffand Kovecses (1987), for ex-
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ample, analyze English phrases about anger-"hot under the collar" or "blowing his top" as referringto a core metaphor for anger: anger is a hot liquid in a container. The metaphor in turn stands for a model of anger that consists of a sequence of events: one party takes offense at another's actions, eventually loses control, and retaliates. Here we suggest that this characteristic organization of cultural models through metonyms may come about because mediating devices-which for Vygotsky were fundamental to cognitive development-are also the primary means by which cultural models are learned from others, and it is they that come to be the pieces that stand for the whole. The parts of the model that come to express the model to others are those that functioned developmentally as mediating devices for organizing the understandings associated with the model. As with the Abelam and their paintings, artifacts or behaviors are singled out for the neophyte and emphasized in interactions; they become the objects around which the neophyte's learning of the larger cultural understandings is organized. Specialized vocabularies probably function in similar mannerif we can take the case described by Holland and Skinner (1987) as indicative of a more general pattern. They describe a vocabulary of gender types (such as "Don Juan," "creep," "chick," "easy lay") that college-age males and females use to describe one another. Their research suggests that these words are interpreted against a cultural model of the development of intimacy in male-female relationships. The words are used frequently in casual talk about other people. A newcomer no doubt quickly notices them and responds with them. They become an important means through which the newcomer learns and demonstrates that he or she has mastered the broader understanding. Viewed from Vygotsky's developmental framework these symbols, whether Abelam paintings or American gender terms, are mediating devices. They are first encountered in interactional contexts, but are eventually internalized. They become the metonyms that support the cognitive organization of cultural knowledge.
THE EVOCATIVE POWER OF SYMBOLS AND THE PROBLEM OF
INSTANTIATION
Vygotsky's concept of mediating device helps us recall that, while symbols are incorporated into mental life, they also remain in social life. The evocative powerof these symbols in social life is central to
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an understanding of what has heretofore been a problem in the study of cultural models. One of the more important problems in both cognitive anthropology and cognitive psychology is that of explaining "instantiation"-the application-of beliefs. Although it is clear that cultural beliefs are extremely important in canalizing behavior, it is not always clear when-or perhaps how-a particular set of beliefs will be applied to a particular situation (Clement 1979, 1982; Hutchins 1980; Lave, Stepick, and Sailer 1977; Lutz 1987). The problem of instantiation arises because actual situations can usually be interpreted in many different ways and at different levels of abstraction. What determines which particular set of cultural beliefs will guide behavior in these situations? One popular answer to this question is that the actor's attentions, concerns and actions are directed by his or her goals (Clement 1979; Lutz 1987; Quinn and Holland 1987; Schank and Abelson 1977). If one is hungry, then beliefs and knowledge about how to obtain food will be relevant; if one is concerned about being successful in life, then cultural models of success will direct one's attention to, and concerns about, one's immediate world. Although goals are depicted as embedded in or entailed by cultural models (D'Andrade 1984:97-101; Lutz 1987; Quinn and Holland 1987), there is a tendency to speak as though individuals are goal driven. Recognition of the importance of mediating devices could help to balance this tendency. Objects and behaviors that have served in the past as mediating devices are likely to continue to evoke the models or general understandings associated with the devices regardless of present goals. Adult Abelam are likely to respond to the paintings that have been involved in the rituals of their youth and adulthood and adult Americans are likely to continue to react to American flags like those that adorned and received ritual attention in the classrooms of their youth. Since each of us has only partial, incomplete control over the contents of our environment, we cannot fully control the thoughts and feelings that will be evoked in a given situation. This is true even though the evoked thoughts and feelings may be irrelevant or even contrary to our plans. The continuing power of the symbol to evoke feelings and thoughts is especially important in cases of markers of social affiliation, opposition, and identity. As studied by sociolinguists and others, stylistic variations-ways of talking, ways of acting, and ways
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of dressing-accomplish such ends as conveying a message or protecting oneself from the weather, but they also serve as markers that mediate social affiliation and identity. They evoke these feelings of social identification and these feelings may disrupt achievement of the instrumental task at hand. Ogbu (1985) describes such a situation for black Americans who acquire advanced positions in predominantly white business corporations or universities. Success in the corporation entails acting in ways that in some black communities are used as markers or mediating devices of being white. Acting in these ways symbolizes to the black executive that he or she is acting like a white person. The feelings are evoked by the behaviors regardless of the black executive's plans and goals for his or her career in the corporation. The view that emphasizes goals as an extremely significant part of instantiation is consistent with a frequently cited view of culture articulated by Goodenough (see, for example, 1981, especially chapters 4 and 5). In that view culture is the set of mentally grasped conventions and recipes by which one generates behavior that is deemed culturally meaningful by one's fellows. Cultural artifacts and behaviors are the end product of culture, and the actor's goalwithin the larger goal of acting in a culturally appropriate fashiondetermines which mental recipes will be instantiated or activated. Note the difference in this view of culture and Vygotsky's metaphor of "mental tool." For the cultural-historical school, artifacts and behaviors are not only cultural outcomes but also are themselves attributed meaning and thus made into "tools" for effecting and affecting cognitive and emotional outcomes. This is a more complex interpretation than Goodenough's. In Vygotsky's view, artifacts-as-symbols are indeed produced by human activity (which perhaps can be thought of fruitfully as guided by learned conventions) but once produced they evoke thoughts and feelings. Individuals do use these mediating devices to achieve their goals, but the devices continue to influence subsequent behavior, so that, in a sense, individuals manage the devices but also are managed by them. As Lee (1985:76) summarizes the interrelationship: "Signs
... are inherently 'reversible'-they feed back upon and control
their users." By recognizing the evocative power of symbols we are in a better position to understand the limitations of a totally goal-driven theory
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of instantiation. Likewise by recognizing the importance of goals and the cultural models associated with them, we should be able to resist the opposite extreme of a totally symbol-driven theory of instantiation. We try to control our own behavior, but our means for controlling it control us as well. We create and learn signs to help us manage our feelings and thoughts in one context, but we are likely to encounter the signs in other contexts. Like the black executives, we all end up facing situations that are meaningful according to a given cultural model or interpretation yet which contain elements that evoke other, noncompatible, interpretations. Several cultural models are instantiated and our resulting behavior is an attempt, often inelegant, to respond simultaneously to the multiple interpretations that have come to mind.
THE ONGOING ELABORATION OF MODEL AND MEDIATING DEVICE
In the preceding section, we discussed Vygotsky's developmental frameworkand the light it sheds on the role of mediating devices in the learning and subsequent evocation of cultural knowledge. Vygotsky's emphasis on dialectics and process also facilitates our conceiving another aspect of the relation between mediating devices and cultural models. His framework serves to integrate the varied research findings in cognitive anthropology which suggest thatover time-cultural models are elaborated and developed through their interrelationship with narratives, metaphors, proverbs, and artifacts such as paintings-all of which we would label mediating devices. The interactive dynamics between narratives and cultural models has been documented in several cases. Price (1987), for example, describes accounts of illness in a barrio in Quito, Ecuador. These illness narratives or stories are conventionalized and frequently told. They include descriptions of remedies, the courses of illnesses, sources of assistance, and the responsibilities of family members and neighbors for taking care of the sick. These stories fit Vygotsky's notion of a mediating device. They are a means for organizing and remembering technical information about illness and for modulating emotion about the performance of social responsibilities. Price points out that the stories are not identical with or fully determined by the cultural models of illness. Listeners sometimes alter aspects of their cultural models of illness when they hear a story
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about a particular illness episode; at the same time the stories themselves are made sense of or interpreted in light of the cultural model. The stories are generated largely in line with the models but the models are shaped, developed and elaborated in response to the stories.
The process of elaboration and development of cultural models has been specifically followed in several cases (e.g., Collins and Gentner 1987; Harkness, Super and Keefer 1986; and Holland and Eisenhart, in press). Kempton (1987:234-237), for example, captured an interesting example of individual change in an interview on how thermostats work. In the process of answering Kempton's questions, one of his informants remembered a space heater she had once operated. Upon juxtaposing the specific thermostat and her generalized understanding of thermostats, she noted a discrepancy and decided that her some of her answers about thermostats had been incorrect. As Kempton (1987:236) concludes about her use of the space heater: "This striking example shows how an immediately visible device can display its operation and thus influence folk [cultural] theory." One of the more debated aspects of the interaction between model and mediating device comes from the study of metaphors and analogies. Quinn and Holland (1987) regard metaphors and analogies as one of the major means by which cultural models are elaborated and developed. Metaphors and analogies are commonly used as mediating devices to aid the comprehension of abstract processes and invisible entities; a preliminary understanding of atoms, for example, may be gained by thinking of atoms as analogous to tiny solar systems. In 1980 Lakoff and Johnson went against the "received" view of metaphor as a device of trivial import to the tasks of communicating and thinking. They countered this position by demonstrating the pervasive presence of conventional metaphors in both everyday and scientific speech. They argued the other extreme and sometimes seem to claim that metaphor-the mediating devicecompletely shapes one's understanding of the new topic. More recent views take a stance compatible with Vygotsky's emphasis on dialectics. Metaphors highlight and shape aspects of the model, but the meaning of the metaphor is shaped by what one knows of atoms or the subject matter independent of the analogy (Carbonell and Minton 1983; Holland 1982; Holland and Skinner 1985; Quinn and
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Holland 1987). Highlighted by a new metaphor, a cultural model may be developed in different directions, and similarly the meaning of the "new" metaphor itself may come to be elaborated in new ways (see Salmond 1982). The metaphor and the model develop together in a dialectic fashion; neither determines or is determined by the other. The debate over the interaction of metaphor and model and the empirical studies reported above suggest that models are elaborated in relation to a mediating device or symbol in an ongoing process. Similarly, symbols are interpreted and extended in relation to cultural models. Vygotsky's emphasis on process and the importance of developmental history provides a common frameworkof analysis for these studies and encourages that further historical studies of the interaction between model and device be undertaken. CULTURAL MODELS AND THE CULTURAL HISTORICAL SCHOOL OF PSYCHOLOGY We have devoted most of the preceding discussion to an argument for the incorporation of Vygotskian developmental theory, especially the concept of mediating device, into anthropology. We also argue, however, that the cultural historical school of psychology and neo-Vygotskian theory can be improved by incorporating anthropological concepts. Specifically we criticized the cultural historical school's impoverished notion of the contexts in which mediating devices are used. Insufficient attention to the possibility that cultural definitions of task vary apparently led Vygotsky to an unfortunate conclusion. He was insufficiently critical of notions of unlinear cognitive evolution.
VYGOTSKY AND UNILINEAR EVOLUTION
In order to subscribe to an implicit position of unilinear cognitive evolution Vygotsky and his collaborators had to imagine that mediating devices such as scripts or numerals are everywhere employed in similar activities or rather that activities are everywhere similar. Cole (1985:149-50, 152), for example, has criticized Luria's cognitive studies in Central Asia for neglecting a crucial part of Uzbeki culture. Luria took Uzbeki artifacts and vocabulary into account but neglected the ways in which they organized their activi-
ties. Luria seemed to assume that Uzbeki patterns were similar to
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those with which he was familiar, yet he lacked "knowledge of Uzbeki activities and their associated congeries of goals and means. Hence, he was on shaky ground when he attempted to draw inference about thought. . ." (Cole: 152).
In particular Luria seemed to assume that people learn and display cognitive skills and knowledge without regard to the social context. He seemed not to realize that ways of talking and ways of acting mediate social relationships and social identities. At the time Luria was interviewing the uncollectivized, unschooled peasants of Uzbekistan, they faced an intense political situation and marked social upheavals. Yet Luria (1976, chapter 7) never discusses how they interpreted him and his research mission. Did they think of him as an agent of the government?Did they think of him as a person to whom they must show deference? He had to ignore the usual contextual sensitivity that people show in their talk about themselves as well as the intense currents affecting Uzbekistan in order to suppose that his interviews revealed the full range of the Uzbeki peasants' selfconceptualizations. Mediating devices, even ones that are similar, such as written script, need not function cognitively in the same way either from individual to individual or from group to group. Vygotsky likened the construction of mediating devices to the construction of tools, but perhaps he failed to attribute significance to the implications of the analogy. Just as tools are constructed and used in different ways depending upon the interpretation of the task or context, mediating devices are constructed and employed differently depending upon the culturally given interpretation of the task at hand. We have discussed the example of Cole and Griffin in which the task of reading was interpreted in alternative ways, with the consequence that "good" readers used the text (the mediating device) for one purpose whereas the "poor" readers used it for another. McDermott's case is an even more complicated one in which students learned not to read because reading had come to signal affiliation with the wrong group. Likewise, societies incorporate mediating devices into different sets of tasks. The consequences of a new mediating device at the societal level need not be the same from one society to another. In a very valuable review of Vygotsky's uses of history, Scribner argues that Vygotsky did not attribute enough significance to the plurality of histories of different societies:
Societies and cultural groups participate in world history at different tempos and in differentways. ... Particular societies, for example, may adopt the "same" cultural means (e.g., writing systems) but, as a result of their individual histories, its cognitive implications may differ widely from one society to another. [1985:138]
Ironically, Vygotsky may have remained insensitive to the importance of variation in contexts-even for mediating devices that have become generalized to many contexts and thus seemingly contextindependent-because of his own social milieu. In the 1920s Russia was alive with the enthusiasm of many people trying to solve the complex problems of "building a new society." There was the widespread idea-the mediating device for conceptualizing the situation-that the new, utopian, society by definition was the highest form of human society and qualitatively different from its predecessors. No wonder that Luria, an otherwise careful observer of psychological phenomena, could (together with Vygotsky) a priori view the far from voluntary collectivization of central Asian peasants as freeing their cognitive processes from the influence of their life context, rather than replacing one kind of context-dependency by another.9 SUMMARY Vygotsky's appeal for anthropology comes from his appreciation of the dialectical nature of individual cognition and cultural devices with its concomitant emphasis on history and cross-cultural differences. Fortunately, the implicit subscription by him and his associates (such as Luria) to a unilinear view of cognitive evolution is not dictated by the rest of his approach. It appears that Vygotskywithout much critical scrutiny-adopted the idea of unilinear evolution from the dialectical philosophy of Hegel and the psychology of Heinz Werner. Despite this shortcoming of Vygotsky's theoretical framework, we nonetheless advocate careful examination of his approach, for it seems to have much to offer to anthropological thought. Here we have focused upon only one of his concepts-"mediating device." We have suggested that it provides a means for cognitive anthropologists to expand their explanations of how individuals cognitively grasp culture by conceiving the incorporation of symbols in a new way-a way that clearly admits both the cognitive and affective dimensions of cultural knowledge (see also, D'Andrade
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1981). Further, Vygotsky's concept of mediating device is integral to his developmental framework.Thus we acquire an orientation to the individual's acquisition and elaboration of cultural models, and a means for discussing their historical development. In addition, we see that cultural models are evoked by encounter with those aids or symbols that have served in the past as mediating devices. The resulting picture of the instantiation and use of cultural knowledge in actual situations becomes more complete. The concept helps, in short, to relate cognitivist views of culture to a historical and developmental frameworkand to the power of cultural symbols. NOTES
We would like to thank Rene van der Veer, Catherine Lutz, Laurie Price, Acknowledgments: William S. Lachicotte, James Peacock, members of the "Life Histories" seminar, and two anonymous reviewers for their thought-provoking comments on earlier versions of this paper. Thanks also go to Carole Cain for her help and toJohn Ogbu who keeps asking Holland good questions about cultural models. 'Most contemporary English translations of Vygotsky's writings (see, for example, Vygotsky 1978) use "mediational device" as the term for Vygotsky's concept. We use "mediating device" instead because it preserves more of Vygotsky's emphasis on process. Vygotsky uses and "mediated activdeiatel'nost') both "mediating activity" (Russian: oposredstvuiustchaia in his writings. But he was careful to use the deiatel'nost') ity" (Russian: oposredstvovannaia first when discussing process; the second when discussing the results of the process. The process/outcome distinction was central in Vygotsky's approach to development and should be emphasized when his terminology is translated into other languages. 2A caution from Wertsch (1981:158) is relevant here: Vygotsky's reference to words should not be taken as referring"solely to morphological units; rather, phrases, sentences, and entire texts fall under this category as well." 3In characterizing activity theory, Wertsch (1981) lists six points; four of them are clearly Vygotskian. 4A more literal translation is behavior turned into a stone-like state. 5Vygotsky was probably aware of Durkheim's notion of "collective representations" through the writings of Levy-Bruhl and others. Because of its lack of a developmental perspective, however, the French school was and continues to be severely criticized by Soviet researchers. 6In a sense, cultural models might be thought of as a crystalized or fossilized process-a view of the world that has developed and become established at the collective level. New members do not participate in the original creation of these models, but learn them from more experienced members. Relatively speaking, such crystalized views are slow to change. They can be brought into awareness when they are challenged or cease to work (Kempton 1987) but by and large they are like Vygotsky's fossilized behaviors-processes that are not fully constructed anew for each application but rather are automatic, producing behavior that contains only limited remnants of its developmental history. 7In the beginning, the activity or object is external to the person and tangible. Eventually a mental representation of the tangible object may simply be recalled.
DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 269 8Burke's of metonymy discussion makesthe similarity of metonyms to mediat(1969:506) in metonymy is this:to conveysome ing devicesquite clear.He says, "The basic 'strategy' or intangible statein termsof the corporeal or tangible." incorporeal 9The culturalhistoricalschool also espousedthe idea that tools (such as script)which evolvedlater are therefore better becausethey are developed fromthe oldertools. historically A similarline of argument wouldsuggestthat adultsaremorecompetent (better)thanchildren.Some have inferred similarinequalitiesbetween"primitive" and "modern" people: Themore"advanced" thanthelessadvanced (modern) peoplesaremorecompetent peoples. This view has been attributed to Vygotskybecausehe compares primitive peoplewith the children of moretechnologically advancedgroups.A recentarticleby Scribner(1985:124and arguesthat 132)analyzesthe passagesin his writingsthat comparechild to primitive thiscomparison has beenmisinterpreted.
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Cognition, Symbols, and Vygotsky's Developmental Psychology Author(s): Dorothy C. Holland and Jaan Valsiner Source: Ethos, Vol.