Reviewing and elaborating L. S. Vygotsky's view of language mediated development, this work presents an extension of the Russian thinker's developmental psycho-semiotics to an educational psycho-semiotics. Interpreting original discussions of tool-mediation as developmental mechanism, this book addresses the question of what occurs in the interpersonal environment that enables the internalisation of tool and the development of thinking. Filling in a gap in Vygotsky's theoretical framework, it discusses in detail inter-psychological processes as the social origins of changes in the intra-psychological domain.

Besides theoretical descriptions, this book also offers an original instrument for educational research or practitioners' reflection of micro-genetic processes of interaction and change. This instrument is then applied in interpretive analyses of real-life classroom exchanges.

Contents: Psychological semiotics - Vygotsky - Language and thinking - Language as psychological symbols - Mediated development - Theoretical framework - Interpretive instrument - Interpretive analyses.