The document discusses two theorists, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Lev Vygotsky, and their views on language and thought. It provides biographical details about each thinker. Wittgenstein came from a wealthy family in Austria but gave away his inheritance, teaching in remote villages and getting into controversies. Vygotsky was born in present-day Belarus and studied a range of topics in university in Russia before returning home, with little known about his life during German occupation. The document examines how each theorist believed language shapes thought and mental processes.

1. Structuring thought through talk
Mind control how often have you controlled thought
through questioning?
Wertsch (1991)
The father asks where she last saw the toy: the child says I can’t remember’. He asks did you
have it in your room? Outside? Nextdoor?
To each question, the child answers ‘no’. When he says ‘in the car?’, she says, ‘I think so’ and
goes to retrieve the toy.

2. Wertsch (1991)
In Voices of the Mind, James Wertsch outlines an approach to mental
functioning that stresses its inherent cultural, historical, and institutional
context. A critical aspect of this approach is the cultural tools or
"mediational means" that shape both social and individual processes. In
considering how these mediational means--in particular, language--
emerge in social history and the role they play in organizing the settings
in which human beings are socialized

3. Would Ludwig and Lev have been friends

4. The limits of my language mean the limits of my
world.
(Ludwig Wittgenstein 1889-1951)
Ludwigs father was an industrial tycoon, and by the
late 1880s was one of the richest men in
Europe, with an effective monopoly on Austria's
steel cartel.
Wittgenstein and Hitler were born just six days
apart, they ended up two grades apart at the
Realschule a small state school with 300 pupils.
In January 1917, he was sent as a member of a
howitzer regiment to the Russian front, where he
won several more medals for bravery including the
Silver Medal for Valour, First Class
He gave away his entire inheritance. He left
academia several times teaching in schools in
remote Austrian villages, where he encountered
controversy for hitting children when they made
mistakes in mathematics.

5. “Thought undergoes many changes as it turns into speech, it
does not merely find expression; it finds reality and form”
(Lev Vygotsky 1896 – 1934)
Lev Vygotsky was born in Belarus, then part of the
Russian Empire (present-day Belarus) into a non-
religious middle class Jewish family. His father was a
banker.
He was raised in the city of Gomel, where he
obtained both public and private education. In 1913
Vygotsky was admitted to the Moscow State
University where he graduated with a degree in law
in 1917.
Upon graduation Vygotsky returned to Gomel, There
is virtually no information about his life during the
years of the German occupation
He studied a range of topics white attending
university, including sociology, linguistics, psychology
and philosophy.

6. • Discus which your favorite strategy would be
and explain why.
• Choose the one activity you would want to
keep if you had to throw all others away.
As a group…

7. Why did Ferris take a day off school?