![\"vygotsky.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/11\/vygotsky.thumbnail.jpg\" "\\"vygotsky.jpg\\"")
I’m reading the Cambridge Companion to Vygotsky and trying to make sense of my notes on Boris Meshcheryakov’s chapter on Terminology in Vygotsky’s writings. Here’s my version of his explanatory chart (which I can’t persuade WordPress to render legibly) – and a worked example involving squirrels.<\/p>\n
Natural form of behaviour.<\/strong> I look out of the window, see the squirrel, smile, go back to my computer. I’m reading the Cambridge Companion to Vygotsky and trying to make sense of my notes on Boris Meshcheryakov’s chapter on Terminology in Vygotsky’s writings. Here’s my version of his explanatory chart (which I can’t persuade WordPress to render legibly) – and a worked example involving squirrels. Natural form of behaviour. I look out of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,22,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-learning","category-sociocultural","category-things-to-remember"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n Sign-mediated\/social\/primitive.<\/strong> I look out of the window, see the squirrel, think of a funny photo that Gill took of a squirrel, smile, go back to my computer. (There\u2019s a mediating sign, created by another but neither of us considered using it for this purpose).
\nSign-mediated\/social\/higher.<\/strong> I look out of the window, see the squirrel, think of a funny photo of a squirrel that Gill took to make me smile, smile, go back to my computer. (Gill has used signs to influence my behaviour).
\nSign-mediated\/individual\/primitive.<\/strong> I look out of the window, see the squirrel, think of a funny picture of a squirrel that I took, smile and go back to my computer. (One of my signs unexpectedly mediates my behaviour.)
\nSign-mediated\/individual\/higher\/external.<\/strong> I look out of the window, see the squirrel, think of a funny picture of a squirrel that I took, smile and go to look for pictures of squirrels on Flickr. (I use a sign to modify my behaviour and thoughts.)
\nSign-mediated\/individual\/higher\/internal.<\/strong> I look out of the window, see the squirrel, think of a funny picture of a squirrel that I took, smile and start to devise in my head a funny card about a squirrel that I could create for Gill.
\nSo that is six situations in which externally I do exactly the same thing (although my return to the computer is delayed in the final case) but my mental function is different.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"