“At that critical moment when a stick – i.e., an object—becomes a pivot for severing the meaning of horse from a real horse, one of the basic psychological structures determining the child’s relationship to reality is radically altered” (Vygotsky, 1967, 12)
While Piaget distinguished between a figurative schema and an operative scheme, Vygotsky understood the same distinction as a difference between object and meaning. He argued that, with object substitutions in play, the child learns to detach the meaning from the object e.g. the; “…child who stamps on the ground and imagines herself riding a horse has thereby inverted the action/meaning relation to meaning/action”. (Vygotsky, 1978, p100)
For Vygotsky, the ‘operations of meanings’ that constitute higher mental functions first emerge in object substitution play. As Bodrova and Leong (2015) put it:
“…the very emergence of the internal actions signals the beginning of a child’s transition from earlier forms of thought processes – sensory motor and visual representational [rote] – to more advanced symbolic thought. At first more stimulus bound, pre-schoolers gradually learn to transcend ostensive reality. (374)”
Vygotsky doesn’t suggest here that the object substitution is symbolic thinking but rather that the play supports the child in mastering the imaginative prerequisites of symbolic thinking. If we consider the activity view of Inner Speech then this may, or it may not, be conscious (Martínez-Manrique and Vicente, 2015).
Vygotsky suggested symbolic play liberated thought and meaning from concrete objects.
He described how a child’s ACTIONS in response to an object
Become
ACTIONS in response to an IDEA
And it is then possible for Actions to become Thought.
As Lakoff and johnson identified, this process is reflected in the everyday expressions that we use:
We: Fall in Love…. or Fall out with each other…
Sit on the fence… Reach for the Stars…
Jump for Joy… Take a leap of faith…
Tread on thin ice… Dig ourselves in a hole… Keep our chin up…
Throw ideas around
“ An operation is an action that can be internalized; that is, it can be carried out in thought as well as materially” (Piaget, 1970, p21)
Bodrova, E., and Leong, D. (2015) Vygotskian and Post-Vygotskian Views on Children’s Play, Am e r i c a n j o u r n a l o f p l a y, s p r i n g.
Lakoff and Johnson (1980) Metaphors We Live By, University of Chicago Press
Martínez-Manrique F., Vicente A. (2015) The activity view of inner speech , Frontiers in Psychology , Vol 6 p232
Vygotsky, L. S. (1967) Imagination and creativity in childhood (Voabraszeniye i tvorchestvo v destkom vosraste) Moscow: Prosvescheniye. (First published 1930)